Adobe has agreed to a £113 milliom ($150 million) total settlement with the US Department of Justice after the government alleged it buried cancellation fees in fine print and turned subscription exits into an obstacle course. The proposed stipulated order, filed on March 13, 2026 in the US District Court for the Northern District of California, requires Adobe to pay £56.7 million ($75 million) in civil penalties to the Justice Department and provide an additional £56.7 million ($75 million) in free services to affected customers.
The case, originally filed in June 2024, accuses the company of violating the Restore Online Shoppers' Confidence Act (ROSCA), a federal law that requires companies to clearly disclose subscription terms and make cancellation simple. The settlement still requires final court approval before it takes effect. The announcement arrives at a turbulent moment for the company, with Adobe revealing the day before that long-serving chief executive Shantanu Narayen intends to step down once a successor is named, ending an 18-year tenure that saw the company pivot from boxed software to a cloud subscription empire now generating more than £14.67 billion ($19.4 billion) in annual revenue.
