UK Digital Markets (DMCCA) — the verified record, live

The Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 rewired UK competition and consumer law in one statute. Its digital markets regime, in force from January 2025, empowers the Competition and Markets Authority — acting through its Digital Markets Unit — to designate firms with strategic market status in respect of a digital activity and to impose tailored conduct requirements and pro-competition interventions on them. The CMA's first investigations targeted general search and mobile ecosystems, producing the regime's first designations in 2025, with conduct requirements now being consulted on and rolled out. The Act also strengthened mainstream competition enforcement and, significantly, gave the CMA direct consumer protection enforcement powers: it can now find breaches and fine companies without going to court, backed by new rules on fake reviews, drip pricing and subscription contracts, the latter commencing on a delayed timetable. For large technology firms and any consumer-facing business trading in the UK, the DMCCA is the most consequential domestic development in this field for decades.

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as of 2026-08-31 · refreshed from scheduled releases

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Frequently asked

Who enforces the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act?

The Competition and Markets Authority. Its Digital Markets Unit runs the strategic market status regime — designation investigations, conduct requirements and pro-competition interventions — while the CMA's consumer enforcement arm exercises the new direct powers to determine breaches of consumer law and impose fines administratively, subject to appeal. Sectoral regulators and the courts retain their existing roles.

What is strategic market status and who has been designated?

Strategic market status attaches to firms with substantial and entrenched market power and a position of strategic significance in a digital activity linked to the UK, subject to turnover thresholds. The CMA's first investigations, launched in January 2025, concerned Google's general search services and the Apple and Google mobile ecosystems, and led to the regime's first designations later that year, with conduct requirements following.

What are the penalties under the DMCCA?

For the digital markets regime, the CMA can fine firms up to 10% of worldwide turnover for breaching conduct requirements or pro-competition orders, with daily penalties for continuing breaches. Under the consumer regime, the CMA can directly fine traders up to 10% of global turnover for breaches of consumer protection law, plus penalties for procedural failures such as providing false information.

More: The Wire — this week across the record · all 38 ecosystems · analyst briefs on this regulation ↗