Antitrust

On 6 April 2025, significant new direct consumer protection powers for the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) came into force. With the CMA having set out its early enforcement priorities and approach, in this post we explore what the new regime means for consumer-facing businesses in the UK and strategies to ensure compliance. 

New CMA enforcement powers

As set out in our previous post, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCCA) grants the CMA new powers – which came into force on 6 April – to enforce consumer laws directly, without having to take businesses to court.  This includes powers to impose fines of up to 10% of a company’s global turnover and to order firms to offer compensation or other redress to consumers.  

While many of the underlying consumer protection rules are unaffected, the DMCCA introduces a number of new obligations, and the risks associated with non-compliance have increased considerably with the new regime.  Businesses operating in the UK could face onerous investigations by the CMA, significant financial penalties and reputational damage, as well as increased exposure to private damages litigation by affected consumer groups. 

The CMA’s focus on consumer enforcement is in line with competition authorities worldwide targeting business practices that mislead consumers, especially with regard to online choice architecture.  For example, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission has recently announced a “click-to-cancel” rule that makes it easier for consumers to cancel their subscriptions and a “junk fees” rule to prohibit tactics used to hide total prices and bury junk fees in the live-event ticketing and short-term lodging industries.  The European Commission has announced that it will launch a consultation on the EU’s Digital Fairness Act which will address concerns around practices adopted by online companies such as dark patterns, addictive design and gaming, influencer marketing, subscription services, dynamic pricing and in-app purchases.

What rules have changed?

The DMCCA replaces and/or amends key pieces of UK consumer legislation, with significant changes focusing on certain practices typically seen online, including: 

• Fake reviews: the DMCCA introduces a self-contained suite of rules relating to fake reviews, including prohibitions against publishing reviews in a misleading way, submitting or commissioning reviews that falsely purport to be based on genuine customer experience, and offering services that facilitate such reviews.  Businesses must take “reasonable and proportionate” steps to ensure published reviews are genuine. The CMA has published separate fake reviews guidance that cover these concepts in detail.
• Drip pricing (i.e., where only part of a product or service’s price is advertised initially, with additional mandatory fees/charges revealed later): the new rules prohibit presenting a headline price that does not incorporate fixed mandatory fees that must be paid by all consumers and/or does not disclose any variable mandatory fees (e.g., delivery fees) and how they will be calculated.  There is no longer a requirement to prove that a failure to present the accurate pricing information will cause, or be likely to cause, the average consumer to take a different purchasing decision.  Further details on prohibited drip pricing practices (and other conduct covered by the CMA’s new powers) are set out in the CMA’s unfair commercial practices guidance.
• Subscription contracts: the DMCCA contains new rules to deal with practices such as not alerting consumers at the end of free trial periods, auto-renewals or making it difficult for consumers to cancel subscriptions.  These rules are not expected to come into force until spring 2026.  When they do, businesses will be required to provide pre-contract information to ensure that consumers can make informed decisions, offer a 14-day cooling off period, issue regular reminders regarding renewals and right to terminate and provide simple and clear termination methods. 

The CMA’s expected approach and areas of focus

In its 2025-2026 annual plan, published on 27 March, the CMA has highlighted enforcing consumer protection law as one of the key pillars to support its commitment to drive growth, opportunity and prosperity.  However, with a number of guidance documents finalised only two days before the new regime came into force, the CMA has indicated that it will take a phased approach to using its enhanced powers. 

During the initial “settling-in” period, the CMA will focus on more “egregious” breaches such as providing objectively false information to customers, “very obviously” unfair and imbalanced contract terms, and sales practices targeting vulnerable groups.  The CMA’s updated consumer protection enforcement guidance states that the CMA will prioritise enforcement where breaches of the law indicate systemic failures in a market, where changing the behaviour of one business would set an important market-wide precedent, or there is a strong need for deterrence or to secure compensation for consumers.  The CMA has also published an approach document, highlighting its intention to carry out extensive engagement with businesses and develop further materials to help them comply. 

In relation to fake reviews, the CMA has indicated that for the first three months it will focus its efforts on supporting compliance, rather than on enforcement, as businesses make required changes to their systems and compliance programmes.  Similarly, for drip pricing, the CMA will initially only enforce the prohibition of genuinely unexpected mandatory charges added at the end of a transaction. The CMA will be consulting on further guidance on areas that are less clear-cut (e.g., how the new rules apply to fixed term periodic contracts), which it expects to finalise by autumn 2025. 

Further insight on the CMA’s likely priority areas for enforcement can be gleaned from its recent casework, prior to obtaining its expanded remit.  For example:

• Reflecting its focus on online reviews, in January 2025 the CMA secured significant undertakings from Google concerning the removal, prevention, and monitoring of fake reviews on its platform, and has an ongoing investigation into Amazon. 
• The CMA secured undertakings from Wowcher to change its online selling practices following concerns that Wowcher’s countdown timers and marketing claims may create a false sense of urgency and influence people’s purchasing decisions.  Similarly, the CMA agreed undertakings from Simba Sleep to only use genuine discount claims and clear and accurate countdown timers to avoid false impressions of urgency, and has issued court proceedings against Emma Group over related concerns. 
• The undertakings agreed in ASOS, Boohoo and Asda show that the CMA will home in on “greenwashing” and misleading environmental claims (as discussed previously).
• The CMA recently announced that it is consulting with Ticketmaster to secure changes to its selling practices following concerns raised regarding the 2024 Oasis concert ticket sale, including labelling certain tickets as ‘platinum’ without noting that there were no additional benefits despite a near 2.5 times mark-up. The CMA is seeking changes to the information Ticketmaster provides to customers, when it provides that information, and how it labels some of its tickets.

Key takeaways

It is clear that with its enhanced powers the CMA intends to enforce the new consumer protection regime with full vigor, even if some leeway may be provided initially for less obvious breaches.  Businesses should consider the following to ensure compliance.

• Consumer-facing businesses should be well versed with their revised consumer law obligations under the DMCCA and the CMA’s enforcement priorities, and consider refreshing staff compliance training.
• Given the CMA’s focus on online selling practices, the entire experience that a consumer has while engaging with the business’ website, including after sales services, should be assessed and appropriate protocols established to ensure that business practices are compliant with all aspects the new regime. 
• Affected companies may wish to actively engage with the CMA’s outreach programs to get clarity on how the new regime applies to their business and the safeguards that they should put in place.
• In the context of acquisitions of retail businesses, the potential for consumer law claims should be factored into the due diligence process.
• Where investigations are initiated, the CMA can be expected to place companies under significant time pressure to respond, as a result of a new ‘duty of expedition’ under the DMCCA. Early and extensive engagement with legal counsel can help in meeting deadlines in a timely and effective manner.