CMA Imposes £473,000 Penalty For Failure To Comply With Information Notice

The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has imposed a £473,000 penalty on a private car park management company for failing to respond to an information notice. The decision, issued in December 2025 and published in February 2026, is the first use of the CMA's enhanced powers under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCCA) in consumer protection enforcement.

The fine was imposed before any formal investigation had been opened and without any finding that the company in question had breached consumer law. In fact, it related to the company's failure to respond to a CMA information notice, showing that procedural non-compliance alone can lead to penalties.

DMCCA – the legal framework

The DMCCA introduces significant changes to the UK's digital, competition and consumer protection framework. It creates a new regulatory regime for digital markets, and strengthens the enforcement of competition and consumer protection rules. Taken together, these rules have significant implications for all businesses that sell to UK consumers, including those based outside the UK.

The DMCCA also expands the CMA's powers to obtain information when enforcing consumer protection law. The CMA can now issue information notices from a wide range of parties, including:

• businesses or individuals who may be under investigation
• companies located inside and outside the UK
• third parties, such as customers, complainants or service providers, provided they have a connection to the UK

Previously, the CMA typically had to apply to the courts to compel a response where a recipient failed to comply with an information request. The DMCCA now also allows the CMA to enforce these requests directly and impose financial penalties for non-compliance, including: 

• fixed penalties of up to £30,000 or 1% of a company's annual global turnover, whichever is higher; and
• daily penalties of up to £15,000 or 5% of daily turnover where non-compliance continues.

Background to the penalty

In July 2025, the CMA sent the company an information notice requesting specific documents and information. Information notices are usually one of the first steps in the CMA's enforcement process and are used to gather evidence to help the CMA decide whether a formal investigation should be opened. At this stage, the CMA has not made any findings, and there may not even be a suspicion that consumer law has been broken. However, an information notice is still a formal legal request that businesses are required to respond. 

Following the CMA's request, the company did not respond by the deadline, despite several attempts by the authority to make contact. According to the CMA, the company only responded months after the notice was first issued, and after the CMA published provisional findings in October 2025 indicating that it was considering imposing a financial penalty. In its response, the company said it had blocked emails from the CMA because it believed they were fraudulent or part of a scam. The CMA rejected this explanation and concluded that the company did not have a reasonable excuse for failing to respond. It therefore imposed a fine of £473,000.

How the fine was calculated

Following the failure to respond, the CMA imposed the fine of £473,000, which represents 75% of the maximum fixed penalty available. Under its enforcement powers, the CMA can impose a fixed penalty of up to 1% of a company's annual turnover for this type of breach. In setting the penalty, the CMA considered several factors, including:

• the lack of engagement with the information notice
• the delay caused to the CMA's enquiries (as the company ignored the notice and failed to respond to multiple communications, requiring the CMA to spend additional time and resources to obtain the information)
• the level of culpability

The regulator could also have imposed daily penalties of up to 5% of daily turnover for continued non-compliance, although these were not applied in this case. The penalty relates solely to the failure to comply with the information notice and is also separate from other fines that could be imposed for substantive breaches of consumer protection law, which do not appear to have been even investigated.

The car company has appealed the CMA's decision to the High Court. The fine is not payable until this appeal is determined or withdrawn, unless the court orders otherwise.

Key takeaways for businesses

This case shows that the CMA is willing to use its enforcement powers under the DMCCA and expects businesses to respond promptly to any regulatory requests. Information notices should be treated as urgent and escalated internally without delay. Companies, including those based outside the UK but operating in the UK market, should ensure they have clear internal procedures for receiving, verifying and responding to communications.

The decision also confirms that substantial penalties can be imposed for procedural failures alone, even where no breach of consumer law has been established. If a business cannot meet a deadline set out in an information notice, it should contact the CMA as soon as possible, explain the reasons and request an extension where necessary. The CMA's guidance indicates that extensions may be granted in some cases, but early engagement is essential.

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