Back in the November edition, we covered the Competition and Markets Authority’s (CMA) finalised guidance on complying with price transparency requirements alongside its announcement on a “major consumer protection drive” focussing on online pricing practices.

At that point, the CMA announced eight investigations, and we now have substantive updates on three of them and a new investigation announced.

In a nutshell, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCCA) has tougher requirements on how prices are displayed and gives the CMA direct powers of enforcement. The key change is the CMA can levy fines without needing to go to court. 

What CMA Action do I need to know about?

The DMCCA prohibits drip-pricing, which is when additional fees are added along the payment journey. In April, the CMA announced a Final Infringement Notice (“FIN”) against the AA Driving School and BSM Driving School because a mandatory £3 fee had not been included upfront. The driving schools were required to refund the fee which had been charged to consumers during the April to 15 December which came to more than £760,000. The CMA initially assessed the fine at £7 million but reduced it to £4.2 million taking into account mitigating factors (such as the fact the holding company made a clear admission to breaking the law and agreed to an expedited procedure). 

Ryanair is being investigated for requiring parents to sit with children on flights but whilst allowing children’s seats to be reserved for free, applying an additional booking fee to parents and guardians to sit with them. This investigation relates to whether Ryanair’s contract term is “unfair” under consumer law as well as whether the price of the mandatory family seat is "dripped" through the booking process. 

The CMA issued a FIN to Marks Electrical and imposed a £720,000 fine on the company for automatically opting in consumers to purchasing additional services within the payment journey. Charges paid by consumers as a result of this practice will need to be refunded.  Again, the fine was reduced taking into account mitigating factors including, admissions made by the company and its agreement not to appeal the decision.

The next updates to the investigations into Appliances Direct and Wayfair are due in Summer 2026 so we can be sure that there will be more to say soon. Whilst the CMA’s action against Emma Sleep’s countdown timers, and false ‘high demand’ messages and ‘discount’ claims was subject to a court-confirmed settlement the case on reference pricing was heard in the High Court and we await a judgement.

Is ASA action still a concern?

Although the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) cannot impose fines, it’s worth noting that it is also taking action on pricing claims in advertising which breach the updated rules. This is particularly pertinent when one notes that the CMA referred ASA rulings against Emma Sleep in court proceedings against the company.

It is also using its AI Active Ad Monitoring System to scan for misleading online savings claims and took particular interest in claims made in relation to Black Friday price promotions last year. As expected, the ASA referenced the updated guidance from The Chartered Trading Standards Institute Guidance for Traders on Pricing Practices when assessing whether or not the reference prices used to make savings claims would be considered misleading to consumers. Specifically, that advertisers should consider how long an advertised product has been on sale at the higher price, compared to the period for which the promotional price was offered. Providing information in relation to the relevant time periods but not unit sales data was ruled insufficient to substantiate that a price was genuine. Savings claims under the branding of an online marketplace provider were found to be misleading when the marketplace was unable to provide detailed sales or pricing history for the products advertised.

The ASA ruled that describing a large cabin bag fee as being “from £5.99” was misleading on the basis that the airline could not show that large cabin bags would be available to book for £5.99 across a significant proportion of flight routes and dates. Promotional prices on a travel operator website were found to be misleading because the prices did not update to take into account changes in flight prices and the marketing communications did not make clear that prices were subject to change. 

Next steps

It’s crucial that businesses assess their pricing practices, especially the display of the total price in invitations to purchase, because practices which may have been compliant previously may no longer be so under the DMCCA, and as the last few months have shown the CMA remains active in this area.

If you advertise products and services to the consumer and need support on getting to grips with the DMCCA, our specialist advertising and marketing lawyers can help.