2 ms·
> A bureaucrat will decide if you can exit the way you want to. It's not up to the bureaucrat but to the courts. The FTC doesn't "approve" or "reject" deals--i
by airstrike 3y ago
> A bureaucrat will decide if you can exit the way you want to.
It's not up to the bureaucrat but to the courts. The FTC doesn't "approve" or "reject" deals--it can just take legal action to try to stop a deal, but that still gets adjudicated either in a federal court or in an FTC administrative law court to a judge which is appointed independently.
https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/merger-review https://www.ftc.gov/enforcement/merger-review
https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/administrative-law-judge-system https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/administrative-law-...
- matthewowen 3y agoTrue in the US, not true in the UK or EU.
- airstrike 3y agoFair, I'm not as familiar with the UK/EU regulatory environment
- junofan 3y agoThat’s who’s blocking the sale according to Adobe’s press release: https://news.adobe.com/news/news-details/2023/Adobe-and-Figma-Mutually-Agree-to-Terminate-Merger-Agreement/default.aspx https://news.adobe.com/news/news-details/2023/Adobe-and-Figm... Depending on specifics, the EU stopping blockbuster acquisitions in the US startup ecosystem feels ripe for abuse.
- airstrike 3y agoI can assure you the EU isn't blocking this to prevent US founders from making money
- evrydayhustling 3y agoAdding a legal battle with the FTC to the cost of any acquisition can chill and kill otherwise obvious deals, and or sap value out of those that push through. FWIW, I think there are good reasons to limit tech consolidation, including this one. But anyone should realize that it will reshape the industry in unpredictable ways, including some that harm "real" consumers and builders.
- airstrike 3y agoBut anti-trust isn't being invented now. It's always existed. Companies already factor in anti-trust risk when doing M&A—it's just hard to quantify the expected value of that risk If anything, IMHO, we've been too lenient with anti-trust in Tech in particular over the past 5-10 years. This just dials things back a little, and makes it so that "hard to quantify" risk is a little more likely than it was before, and certainly a little more likely than zero I don't think Adobe / Figma specifically is an "otherwise obvious deal" precisely because it has such obvious anti-trust risk. The fact that this merger was even announced is all the proof I need that we were being too lenient. Figma can still sell to any number of huge Tech companies
- junofan 3y agoPublished guidance is the correct tool. Blocking acquisitions doesn’t really decrease uncertainty.
- airstrike 3y agoThe guidance already exists. Don't buy your biggest competitor, unless you're but one player in a diversified sector. Blocking acquisitions creates precedents.
- robertlagrant 3y agoAdobe will be fine; this might wreck its biggest competitor.
- ethanbond 3y agoWhat’s net new about this? It has been the case for decades that if you try to sell to the only major competitor that it could be blocked under antitrust.