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Visa's deal to buy Plaid could be in jeopardy

Visa's $5.3 billion purchase of fintech processor Plaid could be at risk to antitrust concerns, according to a report from the Wall Street Journal.

The Journal reported that the Justice Department could decide whether to sue to block the deal soon as it has already made preparations for litigation, including interviewing witnesses, and has spoken with companies that work with Plaid, including PayPal, Stripe and Coinbase.

The deal was originally supposed to close over the summer before being delayed until the end of 2020. And it's not the only acquisition potentially tripped up by antitrust concerns: Google has been trying to close on its FitBit acquisition since it was announced in November 2019.

Biz Carson

Biz Carson ( @bizcarson) is a San Francisco-based reporter at Protocol, covering Silicon Valley with a focus on startups and venture capital. Previously, she reported for Forbes and was co-editor of Forbes Next Billion-Dollar Startups list. Before that, she worked for Business Insider, Gigaom, and Wired and started her career as a newspaper designer for Gannett.

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