Although the penalty does not concern a proven competition law or consumer protection infringement, the CMA’s decision is significant, as it marks a significant moment for regulatory compliance expectations in the consumer protection and competition sector, and underlines the CMA’s commitment to robust enforcement in its DMCCA investigations and is just the latest in a wide range of regulatory areas that are now adopting civil sanction for both administrative and fundamental breaches.
Background
Euro Car Parks was fined £473,000 by the CMA after failing to comply with a legally binding information notice issued in July 2025. The CMA made seven attempts to obtain required information, via registered post, hand delivery, and emails to company directors, but Euro Car Parks did not respond for three months. Only after the CMA informed the company that a financial penalty was being considered did they begin to engage and supply some of the requested information.
The fine relates specifically to Euro Car Parks’ failure to respond to an information notice issued by the CMA in July 2025. Information notices are formal statutory instruments requiring a business to provide certain information to the CMA so that it can determine whether there are grounds for potential infringements of competition law and/or consumer protection investigation. While such notices are common at the outset of evidence gathering, businesses have historically been able to resist or ignore them without facing direct financial penalty. That landscape has now changed with the introduction of the DMCCA’s enhanced enforcement framework.
Euro Car Parks explained that it had blocked the CMA’s emails, contending that they believed the communications were fraudulent and potentially an attempt to scam the business. The CMA did not accept this as a reasonable excuse under the law and regarded the company’s conduct as a failure to comply with its statutory obligations.
Euro Car Parks attempted to prevent its name from being published in relation to the fine by applying for an injunction in the High Court. That application was refused, and the CMA’s enforcement notice was released publicly in February 2026. The company has lodged an appeal against the fine, and the penalty will remain on hold during that process unless otherwise ordered by the court.
Legal basis and penalty calculation
Under amendments introduced by the DMCCA to the Consumer Rights Act 2015, the CMA can now impose penalties on companies that fail to comply with information notices without a reasonable excuse. For this type of breach, which is akin to an obstruction offence in regulatory matters as opposed to the primary breach, the regulator may impose a fixed penalty up to 1% of annual turnover, or a set sum (whichever is higher). In this case, the CMA determined a penalty equivalent to 75% of the maximum available fixed charge, amounting to £473,000.
Importantly, the decision does not represent a finding that Euro Car Parks had infringed competition or consumer protection law, but instead the penalty reflects the CMA’s determination thatprocedural cooperation with its investigations is a mandatory requirement for businesses who are subject to the CMA’s scrutiny.
Key takeaways:
1. Information notices are now a compliance priority, not a formality
The fine imposed on Euro Car Parks was not for breaching consumer law, but solely for failing to comply with an information notice issued by the CMA. This confirms that procedural obligations sit alongside substantive compliance obligations. Organisations can no longer afford to treat information requests as low-risk or optional, even where no investigation has formally begun. Information gathering powers are central to the CMA’s ability to investigate conduct which could potential be in breach of competition and/or consumer protection law.
2. Time is limited, so prepare in advance and front load investigations
These Notices should act as a warning signal and cause a wider investigation of the underlying issue. As you will be against a hard deadline to provide the data required, it is prudent to plan in advance and treat this in a similar way to a crisis escalation. That way you can hit the ground running. The same is true of a substantive notice being served, as many regimes will either have a hard date for compliance / a response in law or on the notice. This can be as little as 28 days, which might sound a lot but in order to review all the information requested, and determine your defence and therefore front loading the investigation becomes key in order to avoid. You should also be in a position where you know which external Counsel that you will wish to engage. If this requires a tender process, given the timings for these notices this is something best done in advance so that everyone can hit the ground running on day 1 as it will be a sprint where every second matters.
3. Ignoring the regulator can now be as costly as breaking the law
Under the DMCCA regime, the CMA can impose significant fines purely for non-engagement. In this case, the penalty was set at 75% of the maximum available fixed amount, demonstrating that silence or delay can attract large financial penalties. Non-engagement alone is sanctionable, even at a pre-investigation stage. Therefore, procedural obligations should be treated with the same level of seriousness as competition law and/or consumer protection law requirements. For context, this penalty is higher than the highest fine for misleading commercial practices under the old regime!
4. “We thought it was a scam” is not a safe defence
The CMA rejected Euro Car Parks defence that it failed to respond because it believed CMA’s correspondence was fraudulent. The CMA argued that it would have been reasonable for the company to verify the authenticity of its communications. Organisations must have internal processes to authenticate regulatory communications rather than block, ignore, or dismiss them - particularly where emails, post and hand-delivery are used.
5. Governance and escalation failures carry real financial risk
The case highlights the importance of internal ownership and escalation mechanisms. The CMA made repeated attempts to contact the business, including communications sent directly to directors. Failure to identify and escalate those communications internally was a critical factor. Businesses should ensure:
- they have put in place clear and well practiced escalation processes;
- regulatory correspondence is centrally monitored, physical post can still be lost so it is important to ensure that the owner of the issue ensures that the obligations are closed out;
- clear responsibility exists for responding to regulators; and
- statutory notices are escalated immediately to legal or compliance teams, even if the underlying issues are marketing, pricing, or technical claims, you cannot afford the lost time of the notice going around the business before landing on the desk of someone who realises how significant it is.
6. The CMA is signalling early and assertive use of its new powers
This enforcement action is widely viewed as a deliberate signal from the CMA that it intends to use its expanded DMCCA powers early and decisively. The fact that the CMA proceeded even though no consumer law breach had been established shows a strategic shift toward speeding up investigations and compelling engagement. Organisations operating in UK markets should expect a more interventionist approach and plan accordingly.
This is just the beginning
While the concept of civil sanctions is not new, dating back to regulatory reform in 2008, until recently the uptake has been limited. Now, attracted by being able to use these powers when they believe appropriate rather than having the cost, risk and time of going to court, we are seeing many regulated areas start to adopt them. In addition to the CMA’s new powers, civil sanctions are now more widely used in a range of regulatory areas including environmental, and product compliance and we expect the upcoming consultation for product safety enforcement powers to extend them into product safety too.
To learn more about Civil sanctions generally including examples of how it works for environmental offences, take a look at the March Edition of Regulatory Radar. You can watch this section from minutes 13:40 - 39:30 in the recording.
If you have questions about civil sanctions and consumer protection or environmental issues, please contact Dominic Watkins or Natascha Gaut.
If you have competition law queries, please contact Dimitris Sinaniotis or Jonathan Branton.
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