UK Watchdog Says Shutterstock Must Sell its Editorial Business to Approve Getty Merger

A U.K. watchdog has thrown a spanner into the proposed $3.7 billion merger between Getty Images and Shutterstock after it said the latter needed to sell its editorial business.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) is a significant roadblock in the deal after it said earlier this year that it had concerns over the supply of editorial content to publishers both big and small in the U.K.

The Financial Times reports that the CMA has provisionally decided that the sale of Shutterstock’s global editorial business would assuage those concerns. Shutterstock operates Shutterstock Editorial, Backgrid, and Splash.

“We provisionally found that a loss of competition could lead to U.K. media outlets, large and small, facing a loss of choice or getting a more expensive service, with knock-on effects for consumers that rely on high-quality content to stay up to date,” says Margot Daly, chair of the independent inquiry group leading the CMA investigation, per the Financial Times.

Both Getty Images and Shutterstock have said they disagree with the provisional findings. Getty says AI has significantly altered the market, and they’re now in competition with players like Meta and Google, which provide image generation tools.

“The proposed merger does not constitute a substantial lessening of competition in the supply of editorial content in the UK, where customers continue to benefit from a wide range of choice and competitive alternatives. We also believe that the remedy proposed by the parties addresses the CMA’s provisional concerns,” Getty says.

Back in February, the United States Department of Justice conducted its own review of the proposed merger and approved it.

“We are very pleased with the DOJ’s decision in recognizing the merits of this transaction,” Craig Peters, CEO of Getty Images, said at the time, per Photo Archive News. “With the DOJ clearance, we take a significant step forward in bringing together these two companies and unlocking opportunities to strengthen our financial foundation and invest in our future.”

Shutterstock has offered to sell its Backgrid and Splash agencies, which focus solely on paparazzi photos, but the CMA calls it a “substantially reduced proposal” and provisionally found it to be an inadequate remedy.