The CMA’s 2026-2027 Annual Plan: Growth, Certainty, and Sharper Consumer Protection Enforcement

Direct Consumer Enforcement – Nine Months On

On 30 January, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) posted an update on its consumer-focused actions, nine months into the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (the DMCCA)’s new enforcement regime. 

Key takeaways include:

• Impact of advisory letters: The CMA reports a “positive” response to the 100 advisory letters it issued last year relating to drip pricing and pressure selling (which we wrote about here) and notes that many businesses have already changed their behaviour as a result.
• Further action anticipated on fake reviews: The CMA has assessed over 200 pieces of intelligence relating to fake reviews and has written to several businesses in the “online reviews sector” setting out initial concerns. Further action in this area should be expected.
• Ongoing monitoring using AI and other tools: The CMA is actively monitoring business practices, including using AI and other tech to identify the “most egregious conduct”. To date, the CMA has issued 29 targeted information requests to build a more detailed understanding of market practices, and it has also engaged directly with other businesses on issues concerning refund rights, potentially unfair terms and misleading claims.

The CMA is explicit that these steps represent “just the start” of the new enforcement regime. In parallel, the CMA has restated its commitment to continue engaging with businesses, for example through an upcoming series of bootcamp training sessions in collaboration with the Federation of Small Businesses. 

Draft Annual Plan 2026-2027

This update comes shortly after the CMA published its draft Annual Plan for 2026-27, which sets out its strategic priorities for the year ahead. In the Plan, the CMA’s objectives are underpinned by five core strategic aims:

1. advocating and enforcing effective competition across the UK economy;
2. championing consumers;
3. enabling competition through advice and recommendations to the government;
4. contributing to a UK regulatory landscape which instils business confidence and acting as a magnet for investment; and
5. prioritising UK interests.

With respect to consumer protection, the CMA states that its annual priorities are:

• Maintaining its strategic approach to implementing the new DMCCA regime, helping businesses comply with the new rules through guidance and pro-active engagement;
• Focusing on areas of essential spend for consumer household budgets (a nod to cost-of-living issues);
• Focusing enforcement action on what it considers to be the most egregious practices where the law is clear;
• Progressing its first investigations under the new regime (which we wrote more about here), actively streamlining cases to focus on the most important concerns, “standing down lines of inquiry as quickly as possible where appropriate” and taking forward cases that will promote legal certainty under the new regime; and
• Driving behavioural change by way of advisory letters. The CMA notes that advisory letters have already driven “significant behavioural change” and are an “an effective means of delivering better outcomes for consumers without needing to deploy resource to full enforcement work.” 

A public consultation on the draft Annual Plan is open until 18 February 2026. 

Revised Guidance on Unfair Contract Terms

In parallel, on 22 January 2026, the CMA published refreshed draft guidance on the unfair contract terms provisions in Part 2 of the Consumer Rights Act 2015. These deal with terms in consumer contracts which are deemed unfair, and thus unenforceable against the consumer; some terms are part of a list of banned practices that are always to be considered unfair, and others (on the so-called Grey List) may or may not be unfair, depending on the circumstances. 

Although the substantive law on unfair contract terms has not changed since 2015, the CMA believes that its existing guidance no longer reflects best practice. It has therefore proposed revised guidance, which is intended to be more accessible to businesses. 

Key changes include:

• Streamlining and restructuring: The guidance has been significantly shortened and now includes summaries, descriptive headings and clickable signposts to improve navigability.
• Simplifying technical language: Technical wording has been reduced, and potentially unfair terms are organised thematically rather than referring to individual terms set out in the Grey List.
• Re‑framing fairness and transparency: The guidance has been reorganised to explain more clearly the principles underpinning the fairness and transparency assessments, and how these are applied in practice.
• Reorganising the content on potentially unfair terms to set out:
  • how a particular type of term could be unfair;
  • how a particular type of term could be used fairly;  
  • examples of terms that are unlikely to be fair and more likely to be fair; and
  • presenting these examples contextually and more prominently.
• Updating references to legislation and case law: in particular, the new Guidance now reflects the CMA’s direct enforcement powers under the DMCCA.

A public consultation on the draft guidance is open until 19 March 2026. Please reach out to any of the authors or your usual Freshfields contact to discuss further.