Adobe announced its plans to acquire the product design platform Figma for approximately $20 billion in September 2022. The deal has already faced criticism for being overpriced and for the similarity between Figma and Adobe’s product design platform, Adobe XD. The company has already started to phase out the Adobe XDplatform from general availability after announcing the deal.However, regulators are concerned that this deal will give Adobe control over one of the few alternatives in the product design software market. The regulators are also worried that such a monopoly may end competition and innovation.

The merger deal is currently being assessed in the US and the UK and now the European Union has also boarded the bandwagon. The EU is launching an in-depth antitrust investigation into the Adobe-Figma acquisition deal.
Why EU is investigating the deal

EU has warned that the deal could “reduce competition in the global markets for the supply of interactive product design software and digital asset creation tools.” The European Commission is set to decide on its next steps by December 14. The investigation will help the EU to decide if the deal should be approved, blocked from going ahead, or should be given approval if the EU’s early concerns turn out to be groundless.

In a press release, the European Commission detailed the deal’s potential impact on the supply of interactive product design tools and digital asset creation tools as its primary concern. The Commission will also investigate if bundling Figma with Adobe’s Creative Cloud suite has the potential to affect rival software providers.
The European Commission also mentioned that the investigation into the merger deal has been requested from at least sixteen member states. The Commission said that based on information provided by those countries the deal threatened to “significantly affect competition in the market for interactive product design and whiteboarding software.”