Of course the Adobe-Figma deal is anti-competitive

The question is whether we should care

Shares of Adobe sold off following last week’s news that the United States government is “getting ready to file suit to block the $20 billion Adobe-Figma deal announced last year on the grounds it is anti-competitive,” though not as sharply as when the company announced the deal back in 2022.

Investors, it appears, are willing to ding Adobe for both doing the deal and not doing the deal.

The Exchange explores startups, markets and money.

Read it every morning on TechCrunch+ or get The Exchange newsletter every Saturday.

That the Department of Justice could stick a fork in the transaction is not a shock. Other authorities have also been taking a hard look at the deal. As TechCrunch reported earlier in February:

Adobe’s proposed plan to snap up digital design rival Figma for $20 billion has attracted the attentions of the European Commission (EC), which announced today that the proposed merger potentially “threatens to significantly affect competition in the market for interactive product design and whiteboarding software.”