The European Commission has opened an in-depth investigation into Adobe’s planned $20 billion purchase of design rival Figma. The EU said it’s concerned about the acquisition diminishing competition for interactive design software and digital asset creation tools.
The EU Commission has until December 14th to make a decision. “With our in-depth investigation we aim to ensure that users continue to have access to a wide pool of digital creative tools to choose from,” European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager said in a statement to Reuters.
The move echoes a similar move from the UK last month when its Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched its own in-depth investigation into the transaction. The UK has until December 27th to complete its “phase two” review.
The transaction would be the largest-ever purchase for Adobe. The San Francisco-based Figma, founded in 2012, quickly grew in popularity and became a go-to tool for vector design and remote collaboration. The company’s products compete directly with Adobe XD and Illustrator. Adobe has previously said it wants to incorporate Creative Cloud suite features into Figma while adding some of Figma’s collaborative capabilities to its core products. It said at the time of the acquisition’s announcement that it was “deeply committed” to keeping Figma independent and said there was “no plan” to change its pricing or remove its free tier.
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“The combination of Adobe and Figma will deliver significant value to customers by making product design more accessible and efficient, reimagining creative capabilities on the web and creating new categories of creativity and productivity,” Adobe said in a statement to Engadget. “We have been delighted to hear overwhelmingly positive feedback from customers worldwide and are excited about the economic benefits the deal will bring. We remain confident in the merits of the case as Figma’s product design is an adjacency to Adobe’s core creative products and Adobe has no meaningful plans to compete in the product design space.”
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