Consumer law | UK Regulatory Outlook March 2025

Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 updates

Consumer protection from unfair trading and enforcement provisions to come into force on 6 April 2025  

The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (Commencement No. 2) Regulations 2025 have been made, bringing into force the following parts of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCCA) on 6 April 2025:  

• Consumer enforcement powers under Part 3 of the DMCCA, including direct powers for the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to impose fines for breaches of consumer law.
• The unfair commercial practices provisions under Chapter 1 of Part 4 of the DMCCA (except for the consumer rights of redress provisions). See our Insight for more information.  

The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (CMA Consumer Enforcement Rules) Regulations 2025 have also been made, bringing into force the CMA's direct consumer enforcement rules, set out in the schedule to the regulations on 6 April 2025. The CMA consulted on the rules between 31 July and 18 September 2024 and will publish its response before the rules come into force.  

The CMA has also now published its finalised "direct consumer enforcement guidance", setting out how the direct enforcement process will run from start to finish and how the regulator will interact with parties. The CMA also intends to publish its finalised "consumer protection: enforcement guidance", which will set out when the regulator will exercise its direct enforcement powers, on which it consulted at the end of last year (see our Insight). 

New consumer enforcement regime: CMA sets out its initial plans for enforcement  

Ahead of the CMA's new direct consumer enforcement powers under the DMCCA coming into force on 6 April 2025 (see item above), its chief executive, Sarah Cardell, revealed how the new regime will operate in its first months. 

• Enforcement action: early enforcement action is likely to focus on "the most egregious breaches", such as: aggressive sales practices exploiting consumers' vulnerabilities; providing objectively false information to consumers; practices that are always unfair; and contract terms that are very obviously imbalanced and unfair.
• Drip pricing: this is the issue on which the CMA received the most substantive feedback during its consultation on its unfair commercial practices guidance (see our Insight). Taking this into account, the CMA will adopt a "phased approach" to its guidance. In April 2025, the regulator intends to provide a "clear framework" for complying with well-understood and largely unchanged aspects of the law, including the ban on genuinely unexpected and untrailed mandatory charges added at the end of a purchasing journey. The CMA will also consult on the more uncertain aspects of its drip pricing guidance, which includes fixed-term periodic contracts, in the summer, and intends to publish finalised guidance on this aspect in the autumn. In the meantime, the CMA intends to only take enforcement action against drip pricing which clearly breaches the rules.
• Fake reviews: for the first three months of the new regime the CMA will focus on supporting businesses with their compliance efforts, rather than enforcement. 

The CMA wants to support "well-intentioned businesses" that strive to comply but may be uncertain as to the precise requirements for compliance, particularly where the law has been updated or is new. When determining penalties, the CMA will consider whether businesses have proactively taken steps to rectify infringing behaviour. 

The Committee of Advertising Practice (CAP) has also published an update on the changes to the advertising codes to align them with the DMCCA. Some of the rules in the codes are currently being reviewed, following the committee's consultation, which closed on 5 February 2025 (see this Insight). CAP advises marketers to refer to the unfair commercial practices provisions in the DMCCA when preparing ads until the review is completed, and the ASA will take these provisions into account when applying the affected rules.

Following the CMA's approach, the ASA intends to take enforcement action on drip pricing issues only against ads that clearly breach the rules and do not involve aspects of drip pricing falling within the scope of the CMA's "re-consultation", until the CMA publishes its final guidance on those aspects. In relation to fake reviews, the ASA plans to take the same approach as the CMA above. However, the ASA will continue to apply its existing rules on testimonials and endorsements.