In case you missed it, the CMA published its final guidance for trader recommendation platforms last month. Back in July, we wrote about its consultation about its draft guidance.  As well as its guidance for recommendation platforms, it has also published guidance for consumers on how to find a reputable trader.

Guidance for platforms

The advice sets out the key principles sites should follow to make sure they stay on the right side of the law and includes some case studies.  The principles are:

• Your representations about your service and the traders on your platform should be clear and accurate, and must not mislead consumers, including in relation to the actions taken to ensure the quality, reliability or suitability of traders that appear on your platform;
• You must have in place appropriate processes and adopt the necessary practices to vet traders effectively. Consumers can expect you to have taken appropriate and effective steps to reduce the risk of you introducing them to poor quality, unreliable or unsuitable traders;
• You should have an accessible, transparent and effective complaints process. Your complaints process should ensure that consumers can easily submit their complaints and that complaints are considered and acted on promptly, professionally and fairly;
• You should monitor the performance of traders on your platform on an ongoing basis and your monitoring activities should be appropriate and effective;
• You should act effectively on issues that come to your attention via your complaints process(es), and monitoring activities. This includes having a suitable and transparent sanctions policy and operating timely and effective investigation and sanction processes; and
• Where you publish or provide access to online reviews, you should adopt effective, transparent and impartial practices for the collection, moderation and publication of online consumer reviews.  This last one is particularly important as fake reviews are specifically covered by the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024.

Guidance for consumers

The guidance sets out practical tips for consumers to follow before they choose a trader recommendation site to find a trader, including what information they should look for and compare (for example information on how the trader recommendation site vets and monitors traders, its complaints and sanction processes and its approach to online consumer reviews).

With the consumer enforcement and unfair trading provisions of the DMCC Act coming into force from April next year, the CMA will have beefed up powers and traders and recommendation platforms should ensure that they are reviewing their practices so that they are ready to comply with the new rules.