Getty Images has pulled the plug on its planned merger with Shutterstock, ending a $3.7 billion deal that would have created the dominant force in commercial visual content. The culprit: regulatory pressure from the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority, which demanded the companies carve out a significant chunk of their editorial business before it would let the deal proceed.
The merger, first announced on January 7, 2025, was structured as a “merger of equals” that would have given Getty shareholders roughly 54.7% of the combined entity and Shutterstock shareholders about 45.3%. The combined company would have operated under the Getty name.
What the UK regulators wanted
The CMA didn’t object to the merger entirely. It actually cleared the deal when it came to global stock content, the bread-and-butter business of generic photos, videos, and illustrations that populate websites, ads, and presentations worldwide.
The problem was editorial content. On February 19, 2026, the CMA published provisional findings flagging serious competition concerns in the UK editorial content market.
