CMA Issues First Fine Under New Direct Consumer Enforcement Powers

The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has fined a firm for failing to respond to an information notice. The fine marks the first use of the CMA's enhanced procedural enforcement powers under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act and sends a clear signal to businesses about the consequences of ignoring the CMA's communications.

Over a period of three months, Euro Car Parks (ECP) ignored seven separate attempts by the CMA to secure a response, despite emails to company directors, delivery via registered post and hand-delivery by a CMA staff member.

ECP only started to engage with the CMA once the authority issued a "Provisional Notice" indicating a fine would be issued. The CMA did not consider the grounds for excuse submitted by ECP to be sufficient to avoid a fine.

We highlight three key takeaways from the enforcement action.

1. CMA information notices are not optional and demand timely action

Following the overhaul of the regime last year, the CMA now has direct powers to enforce the UK consumer protection rules.

To support this function, and in particular to help it determine whether an investigation is warranted, the CMA can collect information by issuing formal information notices.

These are legally binding requests that oblige the recipient to provide specified information by a deadline. They are, according to the CMA's senior director of consumer enforcement, "essential tools that help [the CMA] understand the facts and get to the bottom of potential infringements of the law."

The authority is clear that timely responses to information notices are critical to ensuring it can act swiftly and effectively to protect consumers.

By ignoring the CMA's notice and failing to respond to its multiple communications, the CMA says that ECP delayed its work and forced it to spend additional time and resources to gather the requested information.

Businesses should be aware, however, that there may be some flexibility in information request deadlines. The CMA's guidance on gathering information in consumer enforcement cases states that extensions may be possible. Timing will be of the essence— firms that will find it difficult to meet a CMA deadline should contact the authority as soon as possible, giving clear reasons for the extension request.

2. The CMA is not afraid to impose heavy sanctions

The CMA can impose fines of up to 1% of a company's annual turnover for failures to respond to information notices. Reflecting its willingness to use the full range of its fining powers, ECP's GBP473,000 fine is 75% of the maximum possible fixed charge the CMA could have imposed. The authority found that the company's non-compliance was "serious and a major breach."

And the fine could have been even higher—the CMA also has the power to impose daily penalties of up to 5% of a company's daily turnover for information breaches.

Here, however, the CMA took into account ECP's proactive engagement following the Provisional Notice in deciding not to impose daily penalties. It says that this amounts to a "very substantial discount on the penalty that could have otherwise been imposed."

3. Any excuses will be closely interrogated

ECP submitted that its lack of engagement with the CMA was innocent on two grounds:

• Defective service: The CMA's service was addressed to a director who was not involved in ECP's day-to-day management, rather than to its company secretary or managing director. ECP said this delayed its response and was different to what it saw as normal CMA practice.
• Scam attempt: ECP submitted that certain staff believed the CMA's correspondence was fraudulent. This belief was founded on, among other things, the use of urgent language and an exclamation mark, and a "many thanks" sign off from the CMA employee with their first name (despite the employee's full name and role title also being included in the correspondence).

The CMA considered each of these excuses carefully but did not consider either to be reasonable. In fact, when discussing ECP's level of culpability, it describes the firm's conduct as "reckless," caused by "insufficient processes for managing correspondence promptly", "unreasonable" beliefs and decisions, and "a complete failure" by certain ECP officers to take steps to verify whether the CMA's communications were genuine.

It is important to note that ECP is not alleged to have breached consumer law. However, this did not prevent the CMA from issuing penalties against it for non-compliance with the information notice. The CMA is now analysing the information it has collected to decide whether a case should be launched.

ECP has lodged an appeal in the High Court against the fine. It also tried, and failed, to secure an injunction that would have prevented the CMA from naming the company.

More on the horizon?

The fining decision follows the CMA's simultaneous announcement of eight investigations in November 2025 for drip pricing, pressure selling and automatic opt-ins.

Case updates are expected in March 2026 following the CMA's initial information and evidence gathering process. If the CMA determines that the companies have breached consumer protection law, they risk fines of up to 10% of annual global turnover.

Procedural fines in the interim remain plausible. The CMA recently sent advisory letters to 100 businesses across a wide range of sectors advising them of the change in law, sharing the CMA's published guidelines and reminding them to ensure compliance.

If information notices follow those letters, and they are not taken seriously, further procedural fines are likely.

More broadly, it remains to be seen whether businesses already put on notice for potential non-compliance with consumer law risk an aggravated fine if they do not correct their infringing conduct.

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.