£473k Fine for Failing to Respond to UK Competition and Markets Authority Information Notice

On February 13, 2026, the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) imposed a £473,000 penalty on Euro Car Parks Limited for failing to comply promptly with its legally binding information notice. This marks the first use of the CMA’s new fining powers under the Digital Markets, Competition, and Consumers Act 2024 and signals that companies must respond to the consumer regulator’s notices on time.

Importantly, the penalty does not relate to any finding of a breach of consumer protection law. The CMA has not even announced its opening of a consumer enforcement case against Euro Car Parks. The fine relates solely to the company’s failure to respond in time to a statutory request for information.

1. Background
   
   In July 2025, the CMA issued Euro Car Parks an information notice requiring the provision of specified information. According to the CMA, the company did not respond for three
   months, despite seven separate attempts by the regulator to secure engagement, including correspondence by registered post, hand delivery, and emails to company directors.
   
   The CMA states that the company responded only after being informed that a financial penalty was being considered. Euro Car Parks reportedly explained that it had blocked CMA emails, believing them to be fraudulent. The CMA did not accept this as a reasonable excuse.
   
   In December 2025, the CMA imposed a fixed penalty of £473,000, equivalent to 75% of the maximum possible fixed charge. Euro Car Parks subsequently sought to prevent the CMA  from naming it publicly and applied to the High Court for an injunction, which was refused. The company has appealed the penalty decision to the High Court.
   
   
2. The CMA’s information-gathering powers

   Information notices are formal statutory demands requiring businesses to provide specified information. They are a core investigative tool used by the CMA to assess whether to open a formal investigation.
   
   Under Schedule 5 to the amended Consumer Rights Act 2015, the CMA has powers to impose

   • a fixed penalty of up to £30,000 or, if higher, 1% of annual turnover and/or
   
   • a daily penalty of up to £15,000 or, if higher, 5% of daily turnover

   for failure to comply with an information notice.
   
   These powers are separate from CMA powers to impose administrative fines of up to 10% of global annual turnover for substantive consumer law infringements.

   
   
3. Practical takeaways for businesses

Businesses operating in the UK must

1. implement robust regulatory response protocols, ensuring that processes are in place to identify, escalate, and respond promptly to communications from regulators

2. treat information notices as high-priority matters; even at an early, preinvestigation stage, failure to comply can carry significant standalone risk

3. designate clear internal ownership, assigning responsibility for managing regulatory requests, including oversight at senior legal or compliance levels ensuring that relevancy and privilege checks can occur within a timely period

4. not assume that the CMA will grant extensions; if an extension of time is required, companies should alert the CMA early, with the rationale, rather than assume it will be forthcoming as the deadline looms

The CMA has emphasised that compliance with information notices is a legal obligation and “not optional.” The message to businesses is clear: Failure to engage with statutory information requests may itself result in material financial and reputational consequences.

Sidley’s Consumer Protection team has extensive experience advising clients on CMA investigations and consumer enforcement matters. If you would like to discuss the implications of this development, please contact a member of the team