We have seen significant developments in consumer protection law and enforcement over the last year. In this article, we summarise all the notable changes which generally affect most consumer-facing businesses operating in the UK (but excluding any industry-specific developments). We also explain some of the key developments which are on the horizon for 2026.
Looking Back…
24th May 2024 – DMCC Receives Royal Assent
Okay so this update doesn’t technically fall within 2025. However, it is an important backdrop to the rest of this article. The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (“DMCC Act”) is a landmark piece of consumer protection legislation and covers an array of different topics. Important to note is its expanded consumer protections, new rules for subscription contracts, and a revised enforcement regime under which the Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) can now impose fines of up to 10% of a trader’s annual global turnover for consumer law breaches.
For more information on the DMCC Act generally, check out our page dedicated to all things DMCC.
26th February 2025 – Super-Complaints Guidance Issued
The Department for Business and Trade and the CMA issued guidance this year on ‘super-complaints’. However, the concept of a super-complaint is not new, and stems from the Enterprise Act 2002. Slightly less comic-book than the name would suggest, the idea behind super-complaints is to allow certain designated bodies (e.g. Citizens Advice and Which?) to raise a concern (or a ‘super-complaint’) where a feature of a UK goods or services market (e.g. the structure of a particular market or the actions of the firms operating within that market) is significantly harming the interests of consumers. The new guidance has helped to clarify what super-complaints are, what actions may be taken following a complaint and who can be designated as a ‘super-complainant’ under the 2002 Act to be able to make a super-complaint. We could therefore see an increase in super-complaints and super-complainants. So far this year the Money and Mental Health Policy Institute – a charity run by Martin Lewis from Moneysavingexpert – was added to the Enterprise Act as a body authorised to make super-complaints, and Which? made a super-complaint regarding the home and travel insurance market.
5th March 2025 – Consumer Wins the Jackpot
In Durber v PPB Entertainment Ltd [2025] EWHC 498 (KB), a customer of Paddy Power obtained a summary judgment for over £1m in jackpot winnings. The case was not only a win for the consumer but also highlighted the importance of the presentation and drafting of consumer terms and conditions; something every consumer-facing business should take heed of. A more detailed analysis of the case can be found in our article here. At a high level, this case involved a human programming error in the game, meaning Durber was shown an animation suggesting a win of over £1m instead of the intended ~£20k. The Judge held that liability for such errors can be excluded under a consumer contract, but emphasised that extremely precise drafting is needed to do so. Unfortunately for Paddy Power, the Judge held that their T&Cs were not clear enough to achieve this (especially given they did not expressly reference ‘human’ errors and were buried in a number of different sets of fine print).
27th March 2025 – CMA Publishes Annual Plan for 25/26
Just as Q1 was coming to a close, the CMA published its annual plan, summarising its areas of focus for the coming year. From a consumer law perspective, the plan includes the CMA’s commitment to use its new powers under the DMCC Act to drive positive outcomes for UK consumers and businesses. It also set out how the CMA will reflect the UK Government’s new Strategic Steer, which highlights the importance of a strong consumer protection regime to the UK Government’s mission to drive growth and unlock investment.
6th April 2025 – Some DMCC Provisions Take Effect
The new consumer law enforcement regime and rules relating to unfair commercial practices in the DMCC Act came into force this year. For more information, see our article here. Around the same time that these new rules came into effect, the CMA issued guidance in respect of the new rules, including in relation to unfair commercial practices, fake reviews and enforcement. For details on this guidance, see our article here.
It is fair to say that responses to a December 2024 consultation in relation to the draft unfair commercial practices guidance robustly challenged some of the CMA’s proposals in relation to drip-pricing. As a result, the CMA did not include much detail on this topic in the final unfair commercial practice guidance, and ran another consultation (which closed in September) in relation to some draft price transparency guidance. We are now awaiting revised guidance. For more details, see our article here.
The CMA also published around this same time details of how it will approach consumer protection under the new DMCC Act. One of the CMA’s priorities as part of its approach is to ensure predictability. The CMA plans to achieve this in various ways, including by publishing clear guidance for businesses so they can understand what they need to do to comply with the new regime. The CMA has also said that it will target more egregious conduct and focus early enforcement action on areas where businesses should already be clear about their consumer law obligations (including where there is guidance available). We therefore encourage businesses to review the recent CMA guidance – particularly in relation to known areas of concern to the CMA (for example, fake reviews) – and consider whether any compliance changes are needed.
4th July 2025 – Oasis Tour Starts
We know what you are thinking: why is this relevant to consumer law? (Or maybe you are just thinking, ‘I’m more of a Blur fan’). Either way, this is an important development because the CMA was interested in the Oasis tour; specifically the sale of tickets for that tour.
Last September the CMA launched an investigation into Ticketmaster’s compliance with consumer protection law in relation to the sale of Oasis concert tickets. This was largely due to Ticketmaster allegedly failing to give customers clear and timely information about how the pricing of certain tickets would work. For example, for standing tickets, Ticketmaster released cheaper tickets first, with a more expensive tier introduced at a later stage without any pre-warning, leading to fans who had been waiting longer in the queue having to quickly decide whether to pay a higher price than they expected. Ticketmaster also labelled certain seated tickets as ‘platinum’ without explaining to consumers that this new category did not actually offer any additional benefits, which the CMA considered misleading.
Riding on the coattails of this investigation, the CMA issued a Policy Paper on 20th June 2025 which considered the practice of ‘Dynamic Pricing’ and how this can be utilised by businesses in a way which stays compliant with consumer law. A more detailed analysis of the Policy Paper can be found in our separate article here.
The outcome of the CMA investigation into the Oasis ticketing was that Ticketmaster signed various undertakings on 15th September 2025, whereby it committed (among other things) to provide consumers with more information about any tiered pricing systems and ticket prices in advance. More information on this can be found in our article here.
This high-profile case, which reached mainstream news and even acted as a catalyst for some CMA policy guidance, provides all consumer businesses with a reminder to be careful with pricing practices, ensuring that clear and transparent pricing information is always given to consumers.
7th October 2025 – CMA Complaint Guidance
The last key development of 2025 was the publication of guidance relating to how best to report a potential breach of competition or consumer law to the CMA. This seems to invite non-compliance reports and complaints from consumers and businesses, potentially leading the way to an increased volume of complaints and (potentially) greater enforcement action from the CMA.
Looking Forward…
Summer 2026 – CMA Litigation on Urgency Claims
Something we expect to see in summer next year is movement on the ongoing action from the CMA against an online mattress company.
Back in 2022, the CMA accused the mattress company of using potentially misleading discount offers and so-called ‘urgency claims’ – where sellers use tactics like timers to put pressure on consumers to buy quickly. The CMA investigated this business in the context of its broader work to tackle harmful online choice architecture, with two other businesses agreeing undertakings with the CMA in respect of similar practices. The mattress company refused to enter into undertakings with the CMA to resolve the CMA’s concerns, which led to the CMA issuing court proceedings against the business, and the case is listed to be heard from 3rd June 2026. For more details, see our previous article here.
Autumn 2026 – More DMCC Act Provisions
Looking ahead, consumer protections will only increase as the DMCC Act is further rolled out. We expect the rules around subscription contracts to come into force next year (in autumn 2026 at the earliest, despite a previous intention to bring them into force in spring 2026). We are also awaiting secondary legislation and guidance in relation to those rules, further to a Government consultation about the new subscription contract regime which closed on 10th February 2025.
2026 – New Unfair Terms Guidance and Enforcement Action?
In October 2025, the CMA announced an intention to consult on revised guidance in relation to unfair terms legislation. The current guidance was published in July 2015, and does not reflect legal developments since then (including the DMCC Act and relevant case law and regulatory actions). The CMA did not give a specific date for the consultation.
A recent CMA blog post also summarised recent CMA activities and indicated that – further to some recent evidence gathering – the CMA intends to open enforcement cases soon. These will target egregious conduct where there are clear infringements of law, and the CMA has noted that early cases will relate to misleading online choice architecture and drip pricing.
Conclusions
Against the backdrop of the DMCC Act’s enhanced enforcement powers and strengthened consumer protections, 2025 marked a clear shift towards a more stringent consumer protection regime in the UK. This trend looks set to continue as 2025 wraps up and throughout 2026. As far as we are aware, the CMA has not yet used its direct enforcement powers, so it will be interesting to see if the CMA uses them in the near future; which practices, industries and businesses will be targeted; and the consequences of such enforcement, including the amounts of any fines which are imposed and any resulting appeals.
Our recommendation to consumer-facing businesses for 2026 is to proactively audit their consumer-facing practices, including their processes, the online journey they present to consumers and any consumer-facing terms and conditions, whilst keeping in mind evolving CMA guidance. This will minimise enforcement risk in the future and may have the added benefit of building lasting trust with consumers through 2026 and beyond.
