(Reuters) -Britain’s antitrust regulator on Thursday referred Adobe’s $20 billion buyout of cloud-based designer platform Figma to an in-depth probe saying the Photoshop owner informed the regulator that it would not offer any remedies to ease its concerns.
The UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) had said late last month that it found that the deal could lead to lesser choice for designers of digital apps, websites and other products, and identified concerns in the supply of screen design software, where the companies compete.
It had given Adobe five working days to submit proposals to address its concerns. But on July 7 the U.S. company told the CMA that it would not offer any remedies, the CMA said on Thursday.
Figma did not immediately respond to Reuters’ request for comment. An Adobe spokesperson directed Reuters to the company’s response in June, when the regulator had first flagged these concerns.
Figma’s web-based collaborative platform for designs and brainstorming is hugely popular among tech firms including Zoom Video Communications, Airbnb and Coinbase.
(Reporting by Yadarisa Shabong in Bengaluru;Editing by Nivedita Bhattacharjee)
