CMA publishes final 'unfair commercial practices' guidance under the UK DMCCA: what your business needs to know
Published on 4th April 2025
Significant changes to consumer law under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act come into effect on 6 April
From 6 April 2025, the "unfair commercial practices" (UCPs) part of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCCA) comes into effect, bringing significant changes to UK consumer law. Just ahead of the deadline, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has published its final guidance on UCPs.
The CMA has also published:
- A short guide for businesses and traders, to help explain the guidance on UCPs: What businesses need to know about unfair commercial practices
- Direct consumer enforcement rules
- Specific guidance on fake reviews
- Updated consumer protection enforcement guidance (on which it consulted at the end of last year), which provides an overview of the CMA's consumer protection powers and its approach to the enforcement of consumer protection law.
The regulator consulted on its draft guidance last year.
What changes on 6 April 2025?
The DMCCA revokes and restates the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008, but it also contains some changes.
The CMA's powers to take direct enforcement action and levy significant financial penalties for breaches of consumer law will also come into effect.
Under the DMCCA, some UCPs will be prohibited only if they are likely to cause the average consumer to take a different transactional decision. However, other UCPs such as: employing "drip pricing"; omitting material information from an invitation to purchase; and commissioning or publishing fake reviews will be prohibited regardless of their impact on the average consumer's transactional decisions.
The requirements are broad in scope and wide-ranging. For example:
- All ad and marketing materials featuring a product and a price will need to be reviewed to ensure they contain all necessary information required by the new provisions relating to "invitations to purchase".
- Any businesses publishing consumer reviews need to take such proactive "reasonable and proportionate steps" as are necessary to prevent and remove from publication banned reviews and false or misleading consumer review information.
- Any risk-based calls on compliance with UK consumer law will need to be revisited, as the CMA is armed with powers to take direct enforcement action and levy financial penalties.
Who is affected?
These changes affect all consumer-facing businesses, whether operating online or offline.
The CMA also recently set out its initial plans for enforcement, stating that it will give businesses a grace period of three months for compliance with the new fake reviews regime and that it intends only to take enforcement action against drip pricing that clearly breaches the rules. For further information, see this Regulatory Outlook.
If you would like to discuss any of the issues in this Insight further, please get in touch with the experts below.
Anna Matsiienko, a paralegal with Osborne Clarke, assisted with this Insight.
