The Department of Justice (DOJ) and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) shattered the corporate veil in June 2024 by taking the rare step of naming individual executives as co-defendants in United States v. Adobe Inc. This legal maneuver targets the specific decision-makers alleged to have engineered the "Annual, Paid Monthly" (APM) subscription trap. The government contends that the deceptive architecture was not an accidental byproduct of legacy systems but a calibrated strategy formulated, directed, and controlled by Adobe’s top leadership.

David Wadhwani, serving as President of Adobe’s Digital Media business from December 2021 through January 2026, stands accused of overseeing the macro-strategy that prioritized revenue retention over consumer consent. Under his tenure, Adobe’s subscription revenue ballooned to $14.22 billion in 2023, a metric the FTC alleges was artificially inflated by trapping users in unwanted contracts.