Adobe’s proposed plan to snap up digital design rival Figma for $5 billion has attracted the attentions of the European Commission (EC), which announced today that the proposed merger “threatens to significantly affect competition in the market for interactive product design and whiteboarding software.”
While the EC acknowledged that the transaction doesn’t meet the turnover thresholds set out in the EU merger regulations, meaning that the merging companies weren’t required to notify European regulators, there are separate provisions in Article 22 that allow member EU countries to refer specific cases to the EC if they believe that a transaction will diminish a competition in specific European markets.
As such, the EC said that it has received requests from Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czechia, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden to look at the deal and determine whether there is a case to answer.
Today’s news comes some five months after news first emerged that Adobe was to buy Figma, a 10-year-old venture-backed startup behind a collaborative design platform. A deal of that size was always likely to attract regulatory scrutiny, with the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) already looking closely at the deal while the U.K. is also making initial enquiries.
It was widely accepted that Europe would also eventually look at the deal, particularly after Austria’s competition watchdog sought a referral for the proposed merger last month.
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