First consumer law procedural penalty issued by CMA
The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has imposed a £473,000 penalty on Euro Car Parks (ECP) after the company failed to respond to an information notice. The decision, issued in December 2025 and made public on 13 February 2026, marks the CMA’s first use of the enhanced fining powers for enforcement of consumer protection law granted under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCCA).
Notably, the fine was imposed before any investigation into ECP had been opened and without any finding that ECP had breached consumer protection law. The penalty relates solely to a procedural failure, namely ECP’s prolonged refusal to engage with an information notice. This case sends a clear message that failure to comply with information requests from the CMA may result in serious financial consequences, independent of any underlying substantive infringement.
Legal framework
The DMCCA significantly expands the CMA’s powers to enforce compliance with information notices in connection with consumer protection law. Information notices may be issued at the CMA’s pre‑investigation stage as part of its evidence‑gathering process to determine whether a formal investigation is warranted, as well as after it has opened an investigation, and when it is monitoring compliance with any remedies. They may be issued to individuals and businesses, within or outside the UK, who are or may be the subject of an investigation, as well as third parties such as customers, complainants and service providers, provided they have a connection to the UK. Compliance with these notices is mandatory. However, receiving a notice does not necessarily imply that the recipient is under suspicion of wrongdoing.
Previously, the CMA generally relied on court orders to compel responses to information notices, limiting its ability to address procedural failures quickly. However, from 6 April 2025, amendments introduced by the DMCCA to Schedule 5 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015 gave the CMA direct authority to impose penalties for non‑compliance. The regime now allows:
- fixed penalties of up to £30,000 or 1% of annual turnover (whichever is higher), and/or
- daily penalties of up to £15,000 or 5% of daily turnover (whichever is higher) for continuing breaches.
The only defence to infringement is demonstrating a “reasonable excuse”, and penalties may be issued only where the CMA is satisfied that a failure occurred without such an excuse.
Background to the penalty
In July 2025, the CMA served ECP with an information notice requiring specified material by a deadline of 4 September 2025.
ECP did not acknowledge the notice and failed to respond by the deadline. Over the following three months, the CMA made further attempts to obtain a reply, including sending correspondence by registered post, by hand, and by email. None of these attempts received a response.
In October 2025, the CMA issued a provisional notice setting out its conclusion that ECP had failed to comply and its intention to impose a financial penalty. It was only at this point that ECP engaged with the CMA and responded to the request in November 2025.
Reasons for non-compliance rejected
ECP stated that its failure to respond to the CMA in a timely manner was due to two factors:
- Defective service: the notice was addressed to a director not involved in day‑to‑day management rather than to the company secretary or managing director of the company; and
- Concerns about fraud: ECP believed the CMA’s correspondence was fraudulent and blocked the emails. ECP pointed to features it considered suspicious, including urgent language, the use of an exclamation mark, repeated “Classification Official” and “Official Sensitive” markings, the email being addressed to multiple recipients, and a sign‑off using the CMA employee’s first name (despite their full name and role title appearing in the signature block).
The CMA rejected both explanations. On service, it confirmed that the notice had been validly served and that companies are expected to maintain sufficient internal processes for managing official correspondence. On the fraud concerns, the CMA found no reasonable basis for ECP’s belief: all correspondence carried official CMA branding and was sent from government email domains; multiple delivery methods, including hand delivery, would be highly unusual for a fraudulent scheme; and no steps were taken by ECP officers to verify the authenticity of the communications, for example by contacting the CMA directly.
Calculation of the penalty
The £473,000 penalty represents 75% of the maximum fixed penalty the CMA could have imposed, that being up to 1% of a company’s annual turnover. In calculating the fine, the CMA assessed ECP’s breach as falling within the most serious category of breach, reflecting the absence of engagement, the delay caused to its enquiries and ECP’s high level of culpability.
Although the CMA also has the power to impose additional daily penalties of up to 5% of daily turnover for continued non‑compliance, it chose not to do so. This decision took into account ECP’s eventual cooperation following receipt of the provisional notice, which the CMA described as representing a “very substantial discount” on the overall penalty that could otherwise have been imposed.
The penalty relates solely to the failure to comply with the information notice. This is separate from the CMA’s powers to fine for substantive consumer law infringements. The CMA has not opened a consumer enforcement investigation into ECP, and no finding has been made that the company breached consumer protection law.
Legal challenge
ECP applied to the High Court for an injunction to prevent the CMA from publicly naming it in conjunction with the penalty. That application was refused following a hearing on 11 February 2026, clearing the way for the CMA to publish its enforcement notice. ECP has also appealed the penalty decision to the High Court. The penalty is not payable until that appeal is determined or withdrawn, unless the court orders otherwise.
Significance for businesses
This enforcement action demonstrates the CMA’s readiness to use its strengthened procedural powers under the DMCCA for enforcement of consumer protection law and its willingness to impose substantial penalties even absent any finding of underlying wrongdoing. The case reinforces several key messages for businesses:
- Information notices must be treated as high‑priority matters, even at the earliest stage of CMA engagement.
- Systems for receiving and escalating regulatory correspondence should be sufficiently robust with clear senior-level responsibility for oversight.
- Assumptions about fraud cannot justify inaction. Where correspondence carries official government branding, arrives via government communication channels and is delivered through multiple methods, businesses would be expected to take steps to verify its authenticity before disregarding it. Contacting the CMA directly is the appropriate course of action if there are concerns on the authenticity of CMA correspondence.
- Procedural failures alone can attract substantial penalties, even where there is no established underlying breach of consumer protection law.
- Where meeting a deadline is not practicable, businesses should contact the CMA promptly, set out the reasons for not meeting the deadline clearly and seek an extension of time. The CMA’s published guidance confirms that extensions may be available but early engagement is essential.
With the CMA having issued 29 information notices to businesses since April 2025, this first DMCCA consumer law procedural penalty signals a more assertive enforcement approach on enforcement of consumer protection law. The decision to impose a penalty at 75% of the statutory maximum before any formal substantive investigation had even been opened, indicates that the CMA intends to treat procedural compliance as seriously as substantive compliance, mirroring a trend in recent years on enforcement of competition law.
Businesses should take this as a prompt to review their internal processes for handling correspondence received from regulators and to ensure that relevant employees are aware of their obligations. The cost of inaction, as ECP has found, can be significant.
Find out more about Blake Morgan’s competition law expertise, and how we can assist here.
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