Series
Blogs
Consumer Law: DMCCA battle lines drawn amidst increasing political focus
Consumer Law: DMCCA battle lines drawn amidst increasing political focus
27 October 2026
Series
Blogs
27 October 2026
Authors: Jessica Radke, Spencer Yasotharan
With three more settlements announced by the CMA almost two weeks ago, it is clear that the CMA’s enforcement of the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCCA) new consumer protection regime is now in full swing.
In our one-year update, we observed that the CMA’s early investigations under its new direct enforcement powers, which allow it to impose penalties of up to 10% of global turnover, looked like deliberately chosen ‘easy wins’, largely targeting practices the DMCCA treats as always unfair, so that the CMA would not need to show any effect on consumer decision-making to establish a breach.
Six months on, with the regime now 18 months old, the CMA has continued to target breaches deemed unfair in all circumstances, with every concluded case to date ending in an early, admitted settlement rather than a contested decision, and a clearer picture has also emerged of where the CMA is willing to test the more demanding general fairness standard instead. This has coincided with a shift in the political landscape: three months ago, Andy Burnham used one of his first announcements as Prime Minister to set out a package of “everyday fixes” on the cost of living, which included new consumer protections. In this piece, we take stock of the CMA’s enforcement record over the past six months, and consider what it reveals about where the CMA, and the Government, are heading next.
As we covered in our one-year update, the CMA opened its first eight infringement investigations in November 2025 and issued advisory letters to 100 further businesses, targeting the DMCCA’s automatically banned practices, drip pricing, time-limited offers and default opt-ins, as deliberate ‘easy wins’ that do not require proof of consumer impact. We also reported the CMA’s first resulting settlement: a £4.2 million fine against the AA and BSM driving schools in April 2026. Here is what has happened since:
The pattern is clear: every concluded DMCCA enforcement case has ended in an admitted settlement, and the large majority of the CMA’s concluded and ongoing enforcement cases still concern the DMCCA’s automatically banned practices. The CMA has also begun to test a smaller number of cases on other bases, including the DMCCA's general fairness standard and, in Ryanair's case, unfair contract terms, discussed below. The key take-aways for businesses are: (i) to ensure they have a strategy in relation to the banned practices, since they remain the CMA’s primary focus; and (ii) to engage early with the CMA, both before and after an investigation is opened.
The CMA’s focus is broadening into areas that require it to show an actual effect on consumer decision-making, namely subscription practices and reference pricing. Both areas now coincide with heightened political attention, with the current Government making consumer protection an explicit priority, as we explore further below.
In March 2026, the CMA also opened an investigation into Adobe’s early termination fees under its subscription plans. Later, the CMA opened an investigation into Microsoft’s communication of changes to its subscription plans, including whether customers were given clear, upfront information before being moved onto a higher-priced plan.
Unlike drip pricing or fake reviews, this practice is not on the DMCCA’s banned practices list; it is instead being assessed under the general test for unfair commercial practices, which asks whether a practice is likely to affect a consumer’s transactional decision-making. As we highlighted when the Adobe investigation opened, this makes it one of the first cases to test that standard in practice, a less straightforward route for the CMA than the banned-practices cases discussed above.
Some months after these investigations opened, Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s “everyday fixes” announcement included a commitment to end what have been coined ‘subscription traps’, fast-tracking the timetable for a new subscription regime. Last week, the government released the draft legislation which sets out the operative provisions, alongside guidance for business on how to interpret the legislation. Businesses offering subscriptions that meet the definition under the DMCCA will need to:
The regime will only bite on contracts formed after it takes effect, and a number of categories are carved out under Schedule 22 of the DMCCA, among them utilities, the bulk of financial services and services regulated by Ofcom. However, the new regime imposes materially more onerous obligations on businesses, and given the Government’s clear political emphasis on ending ‘subscription traps’, the CMA is likely to treat breaches of the new regime as a priority enforcement area once it takes effect.
Reference pricing, where a trader demonstrates a saving by comparing an advertised price against a different, typically higher, price (commonly known as “was/now” pricing or comparisons to a recommended retail price), has also come under scrutiny.
The CMA brought enforcement action against mattress manufacturer Emma Sleep concerning its reference pricing practices. The underlying investigation began before the DMCCA’s new regime, so the case proceeded under the previous court-based process, with the CMA seeking an enforcement order from the High Court rather than deciding the matter itself. The result is nonetheless instructive for how reference pricing is likely to be assessed under the CMA’s new direct powers should a CMA administrative decision be appealed. The CMA tested a proposed fixed volume requirement, under which a trader would need to sell at least one unit at the reference price for every two units sold at the discounted price for that reference price not to be considered misleading. In July 2026, the High Court declined to impose the order sought by the CMA, holding that failure to meet that 1:2 ratio would not, in itself, amount to a breach of consumer law. Central to that conclusion was the court's finding that a trader's own genuine, subjective belief in whether a reference price was realistic is a factor the average consumer would consider material. However the Court suggested the parties agree an order, so it remains to be seen what actually emerges in practice from the judgment.
Following this judgment, the Government confirmed it will consult this autumn on whether to add further practices, such as fake “was” prices, invented discounts and misleading recommended retail prices, to the list of practices that are automatically unfair under the DMCCA, regardless of their effect on consumers.
In light of the High Court’s judgment, the CMA has since withdrawn its mattress sector guidance, leaving the question of whether a given reference price is misleading as a fact-sensitive assessment, pending revised guidance and the outcome of the Government consultation discussed above. An understanding of what is required is obviously of keen interest across many sectors.
None of this is entirely new ground: artificially inflated discounts are already capable of being determined by the CMA to be unlawful where they are deemed to have misled consumers, and the subscription contracts regime was always provided for in the DMCCA. What is notable is how closely the CMA’s enforcement priorities and the Government’s policy agenda now track one another. The CMA’s own enforcement choices, drip pricing, subscription traps, misleading discounting, map almost exactly onto the practices the “everyday fixes” package and the autumn consultation single out for further reform. The Ryanair investigation is a case in point: months after the CMA opened its investigation over the family seat fee, the Government announced it will legislate to require airlines to seat children under 14 with a parent free of charge. It is difficult to know which is driving which, but the practical effect for businesses is clear: political and regulatory attention are now reinforcing each other, and we expect this to translate into further legislative change and sustained enforcement activity by the CMA.
