Yesterday we held a very successful webinar about the latest developments regarding pricing and the Competition and Markets Authority.

Since the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 came into force in April, we have been waiting for the CMA to use its new consumer law enforcement powers. On 18 November, it announced a significant enforcement and compliance initiative aimed at tackling misleading online pricing tactics.

The key points are:

• The CMA has opened investigations into eight businesses across four sectors: driving schools, ticketing websites, gyms and home electrical retailers.  This is a lot of investigations at once: the CMA means business.
• They have also sent advisory letters to 100 businesses across 14 sectors (including the travel and holiday sector) highlighting concerns about practices such as:
  • Drip pricing (adding mandatory fees late in the purchase process).
  • Misleading countdown timers and pressure selling tactics.
  • Not getting the consumer's express consent for charging for optional extras online.
• Context: The crackdown follows a cross-economy review of 400+ businesses since April 2025, when the CMA gained its new powers and the new DMCC Act came into effect.
• The start of things to come: These are the first enforcement cases under the CMA's new powers, which allow it to choose which businesses to investigate, conduct the investigation (using strong powers to compel disclosure of information), and decide if the business has breached consumer law — all without going to court. It can then impose fines of up to 10% of global turnover and order compensation for affected consumers, as well as direct businesses to change their practices.

The Act protects UK consumers, so if you are based overseas and market to, and trade with, UK consumers, you must comply with the rules.

How to deal with mandatory charges lawfully

When a business presents information to consumers about a product or service and its price (such as in product listings, promotional emails and advertisements), then this information must set out a total price and include in it all mandatory charges. However, it's worth noting at the outset that you can still have brand advertising which doesn't mention a price at all. 

The key point is that if you mention a price, the consumer shouldn't have any nasty surprises further on in the consumer journey. For example, if you advertise prices for hotel rooms, you need to include any local or tourist taxes.  Even if they are in another currency.  This isn't really anything groundbreaking – for example, you've always had to include VAT, but the CMA is now getting tough.

None of the current cases cover delivery charges, but it is an area to watch.  It can be tricky because people may, for example, be able to use a free click and collect service (although we think that genuinely needs to be available to those the information is aimed at , you can't get around the rules by offering click and collect if, for example, you only have one branch in Lostwithiel).  Another tricky area can be where there are different delivery services: the CMA says it's fine to include the cheapest one in the total price and provide details of other delivery options. And if, for example, people can buy multiple items covered by one delivery charge, then you'll need to think carefully about how you present the total price; one option is to provide the base price and information about the delivery charges along with a clear rolling total.   

Consent for additional charges

The CMA has published guidance which highlights the requirements in the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 (CCRs). The CMA makes clear that if you are offering optional extras (such as, for example, insurance) linked to the main product you are selling, you should not charge for those extras by default. Consumers must have genuine choice over whether to pay for an extra product or service they may or may not wish to choose. You can't use pre-ticked boxes or other forms of automatic opt-in for optional extras, if that means the customer will have to pay for them unless they take action to opt out. 

This is an easy area for the CMA to enforce – as the CMA can locate pre-ticked boxes for optional extras in an online customer journey without requiring any information from the business.  The CCRs say that traders should reimburse consumers for such payments, which makes this type of case an attractive option for the CMA to require redress.

Time-limited offers

Pressure selling is a banned practice under the DMCC Act.  It includes practices such as time-limited offers which are not genuinely time-limited: for example, sales which are swiftly replaced with another sale, or where closing dates are changed. The key point is that sales must end when they say they will end.  The ASA has also been issuing rulings on this point.

What else might the CMA move onto ?

There are four other key consumer law areas to keep an eye on.  The first is fake and misleading reviews.  The CMA has been actively sweeping websites to look at their review policies and check for compliance with the new rules.

The second is unfair terms.  The CMA has indicated that it wants to ensure that consumers are  able to exercise their legal rights when things go wrong and is going to be "refreshing" its unfair terms guidance.

Next year we will see the rules on subscriptions come into force. We are waiting for the government's response to its consultation along with guidance. The government has indicated that the new rules won't now come into effect until the autumn of next year.

Finally, there is reference pricing (was/now pricing which we'll be seeing a lot of during the Black Friday "season"). We are currently waiting for the outcome of the Emma Sleep trial, but in the meantime traders should be following the ASA guidance.  The ASA has been active in recent weeks and months, proactively sweeping for problematic websites and has issued rulings on time-limited offers, for example.

What should we be doing next?

If your business received a letter from the CMA, you're on notice that you need to review your pricing practices, and take action to bring your practices into alignment with that, to avoid a CMA investigation and enforcement action – and because they've already contacted you, if you don't change anything, you might be subject to a heavier fine. Don't hang around!  And remember to look at everything.  The CMA will be back, and they might not just look at the aspect of your website they highlighted in their letter, they might check everything.

If you didn't receive a letter from them... congratulations! But you still need to urgently review your pricing practices, to ensure they align with the CMA's new guidance to avoid future enforcement action.

The CMA can still take a trader to court, but they can now issue fines themselves and those fines could be eye-watering – up to 10% of worldwide turnover.  So, it's really important to get this right.

We have lots of information on our Consumer Law Hub, which we are constantly updating. We have a new client guide about drip pricing, and we also recorded a podcast last week about pricing claims.  If you need help, or you would like a recording of the webinar, please contact a member of the team.