Car park operator gets a ticket – CMA issues £473,000 fine in first use of new DMCC Act powers

The Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA”) has fined Euro Car Parks Limited (“Euro Car Parks”) £473,000 for failing to respond to a statutory information notice, despite no finding of any breach of consumer law. This marks the regulator’s first use of its enhanced fining powers under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (“DMCC Act”) and shows that the CMA means business.

Background

For years the CMA has been lobbying for greater powers to enforce consumer law. This wish was finally granted through the DMCC Act in April last year. Only a few months later, in July 2025, the CMA issued an information notice requesting information from Euro Car Parks. Information notices are typically the first stage in any CMA consumer  investigation and are used to gather evidence in order to assess whether an investigation should be launched. Importantly, at the stage they are issued, no determination has been made whether the recipient has breached (or is even suspected of breaching) consumer law.

According to the CMA, Euro Car Parks failed to respond to the notice for three months, despite seven CMA attempts to contact them via email, registered post, and hand delivery. Euro Car Parks blamed the delay on the fact that it had blocked the CMA's emails, believing them to be fraudulent attempts to “scam” the firm. Given the approach of the CMA, this is not as incredible an explanation as it might sound, at least in relation to the emails.

The CMA rejected these explanations, noting that all correspondence used official branding and government email addresses, that multiple delivery methods would be unusual for a scam, and that the company's officers took no steps to verify the communications' authenticity before blocking them. Euro Car Parks did eventually engage with the CMA, but only after the CMA set out its proposals to issue a fine.

Basis for and calculation of the fine

The most interesting part of the decision is that the CMA imposed a fine of £473,000 in December 2025 for the failure to respond. This fine represents 75% of the maximum fixed penalty possible (being up to £30,000 or 1% of annual turnover if higher) for this type of breach. The CMA could – in addition or alternatively – have imposed a daily penalty (up to £15,000 or 5% of daily turnover if higher) but decided not to because Euro Car Parks eventually did take significant steps to provide the requested information.

An injunction attempt and a pending appeal

Euro Car Parks sought to prevent the CMA from publicly naming it by applying to the High Court for an injunction. This was refused following a hearing on 11 February 2026. Euro Car Parks has now appealed the penalty decision to the High Court, and the fine is not payable until that appeal is determined. As at the date of publication of this article, the appeal date is not yet known.

Commentary

This enforcement action comes nine months after the CMA gained direct enforcement powers under the DMCC Act and marks the CMA’s first use of its newly acquired fining powers.

Importantly, so far as can be determined, the CMA has still not actually even opened an investigation into whether Euro Car Parks has infringed any consumer protection law. Euro Car Parks’ consumer-facing practices could be entirely compliant, but this does not matter: a procedural failure (in this case, a failure to respond to the CMA) can result in a substantial fine. Whilst no fines have yet been imposed for breaches of consumer law, this development suggests that the CMA will not hesitate to impose fines for such breaches, which could be significant (up to £300,000 or 10% of annual global turnover if higher). In doing so, the CMA are following (in a mechanistic manner) their own published guidance on their approach to fines, which is extreme. That approach and guidance is now, for the first time, going to be subject to the scrutiny of the High Court.

Given the CMA’s aggressive approach in this instance, it is clear that more fines (including potentially for substantive legal breaches) are on the horizon given recent CMA activity, and if the CMA continues to follow its own guidance mechanistically, those fines are going to be substantial. The CMA opened eight direct enforcement investigations and issued 100 advisory letters across a range of sectors in November 2025. In January of this year, the CMA mentioned that it had issued 29 information requests to businesses, and engaged with others on refund rights, potentially unfair terms and misleading claims. Enforcement and monitoring in relation to fake reviews also continues. See Price transparency guidance lands as CMA launches first consumer law investigations using its new DMCC Act powers for more detail on the November activity.

In a recent speech, Emma Cochrane, Acting Executive Director of the CMA promised that the CMA would continue to engage with businesses and refine guidance to help businesses understand their obligations. However, she also made it clear that for the minority of businesses that don’t comply, swift, decisive and effective enforcement will be crucial.

If there was ever any doubt that the CMA intends to aggressively wield its new consumer powers, that doubt has vanished in an instant. Consumer‑facing businesses should take these developments seriously, and as a crucial prompt to review their consumer-facing practices, as well as to ensure that they have appropriate internal processes in place to deal with contacts from regulators in short order. Failure to comply with consumer law or respond to CMA contact now carries a substantial financial risk.