Taking stock of the first 18 months of the CMA’s new direct consumer enforcement regime

On 6 April 2025, the CMA’s new consumer protection enforcement powers under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCCA) came into effect. Since then, the CMA has primarily focused on cracking down on “drip pricing”, a pricing tactic where additional charges are revealed only at later stages of the buying process, but it is also examining practices relating to fake reviews, misleading discounts and automatic add-ons.

In this article, we provide an overview of the cases opened to date and their outcomes, and examine the key takeaways from the CMA’s initial rounds of enforcement.

Background

As explained in our previous article, on 6 April 2025 the CMA acquired the power to find firms in breach of consumer protection laws, to impose fines for such breaches, and to impose directions to remedy them and provide redress. At the same time, and with a view to facilitating enforcement, a number of unfair commercial practices were banned outright, rather than being subject to legal tests turning on concepts of fairness and whether consumer decision-making might be impacted.

Highlights from the first 18 months

From carrot to stick

The first three months of the regime were quiet from an enforcement perspective. The CMA took a “supportive” approach - encouraging compliance by publishing guidance and launching an online campaign that provided businesses with a three-step checklist concerning the way in which they price products.

Enforcement activity then accelerated markedly in November 2025, through the opening of eight infringement investigations across a range of sectors, five of which concerned drip pricing. The other three related to misleading time-limited offers and automatically being opted into additional charges. At the same time, the CMA announced that it had issued advisory letters to 100 firms outlining its concerns about their online sales tactics and use of additional fees. This followed an ex-officio review by the CMA of more than 400 businesses in 19 different sectors to assess their compliance with the rules on price transparency.

First fines imposed

The first fine issued by the CMA using its new powers was levied against Euro Car Parks (ECP) in February 2025: £473,000 for a failure to respond to mandatory information notices issued by the CMA in connection with a potential investigation. 

The following month, the CMA opened a further six investigations: one in relation to subscription termination fees; and the other five into practices relating to online reviews, including suppression of negative reviews, incentivising of good reviews, and inflation of certain average customer ratings.

Then, in April 2026, the CMA had its first substantive enforcement success: imposing a £4.2m penalty on the AA’s driving schools for drip pricing (see our previous article). This was swiftly followed by two further fines in June 2026: (i) a £720,000 penalty for Marks Electrical for automatically opting consumers in to purchasing additional services; and (ii) a penalty close to £900,000 for StubHub, also for drip pricing. In relative terms, these fines (which incorporated significant settlement discounts) amounted to, respectively, 0.3%, 0.6% and 0.07% of the global turnover of the relevant firms – well below the 10% statutory cap. They were, however, accompanied by obligations to refund affected consumers, totalling around £1.95m so far. 

Further investigations, primarily into drip pricing 

With three of its initial investigations already concluded, further waves were initiated over the summer of 2026: a drip pricing investigation into Ryanair; a formal investigation into unfair practices by ECP; and, in August 2026, as part of a “wider CMA clampdown on misleading pricing practices”, another three investigations into drip pricing. 

Beyond the identities of the relevant firms, little is known about the three recently opened drip pricing investigations, which are all still at the initial information- and evidence-gathering stages. What has been revealed, however, is that the firms under investigation were amongst the 100 recipients of advisory letters from the CMA in November 2025. It therefore appears that, despite being warned by the CMA that they were likely not complying with the new drip pricing rules (and having the benefit of both the CMA’s official guidance and the example of the approach taken by the CMA in the AA case), the firms were unable to adequately modify their purchasing journeys to include all mandatory fees and charges upfront. The CMA has, however, stated that it should not be assumed that any of the companies in question have infringed consumer protection law at this stage, and the next updates on the investigations are not expected until January 2027.

The other investigations opened in November 2025¹ remain “ongoing” according to their respective case pages, with an update due in “summer 2026”, so further infringement findings before the end of the year would be unsurprising. Those launched in March 2026, on the other hand, appear set to continue – the CMA published updates at the end of September stating that the investigations into practices around online reviews were ongoing, with further updates due in winter 2026/27.

Analysis

In terms of the numbers of cases opened and the speed with which infringement decisions have been reached, the pace of enforcement has been unprecedented. 

By way of comparison, under the Competition Act 1998, CMA antitrust investigations have on average taken around 2.5 years to conclude (looking at those ending in commitments or an infringement decision) and an average of 4.4 cases have been opened each year. While it is difficult to draw a meaningful comparison with the length of the CMA’s consumer protection investigations under the old system of enforcement², in volume terms the comparison is stark, with an average of only 3.1 consumer investigations opened annually before 2025.

The brevity of the infringement cases to date under the new regime (just over six months on average) can partly be attributed to the fact that the parties settled and admitted their infringements, aided by the straightforward nature of the relevant prohibitions. But even if the CMA’s other cases take longer to conclude, with 19 cases³ opened in the space of a little over a year (since the CMA moved out of its “encouraging compliance” phase), it is clear that we are in a new world of CMA enforcement. 

Where next?

The CMA can already point to some notable successes in the deployment of its new powers, and further findings of infringement in its ongoing cases are sure to follow in the coming months. What remains to be seen is whether the firms currently under investigation will take the same approach as their predecessors and opt to settle with the CMA – thereby securing the substantial discounts (of 40%) that the CMA has been willing to offer so far – or to oppose the CMA’s case and perhaps even challenge unfavourable findings in the courts. It also remains to be seen whether the CMA will continue to apply heavy proportionality discounts in its penalty calculations, or whether it will start to impose fines that come a little closer to the statutory cap.

Whatever the answers to those questions, consumer protection looks set to remain a central pillar of the CMA’s enforcement activity over the coming months and years. The CMA has invested in the necessary internal resources, with a dedicated team of three senior directors where it previously only had one, and case-handlers reportedly being reallocated from cartel to consumer enforcement. The work also dovetails neatly with the Burnham Government’s current focus on cost-of-living pressures. This recently saw the Government announce plans to introduce new rules aimed at ending “subscription traps” in January 2027 and an outright ban on misleading discounts and recommended retail prices (RRPs). Neither measure is entirely new (the subscription traps rules were included in the DMCCA but require secondary legislation to take effect, and artificial discounts are already unlawful where they can be shown to mislead consumers), but they will nevertheless serve to further accelerate CMA enforcement. Consumer-facing businesses would therefore be well advised to familiarise themselves with these rules and satisfy themselves that they are compliant.