The UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has opened five new consumer law investigations as part of a broader effort to tackle fake and misleading online reviews. The cases concern companies operating across several sectors, including car sales, online review management, funeral services and food delivery platforms.
The investigations focus on Autotrader, Feefo, Dignity, Just Eat and Pasta Evangelists, and form part of the CMA’s wider enforcement work under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCC Act). The authority is examining whether certain practices related to the collection, moderation and display of reviews may have misled consumers. At this stage, the CMA has emphasised that it has not reached any conclusions as to whether consumer law has been breached.
Online reviews play an increasingly influential role in consumer decision-making. According to research cited by the CMA, nearly nine in ten UK adults rely on online reviews when researching products or services, meaning inaccurate or manipulated feedback can significantly affect purchasing choices. The regulator’s investigations therefore examine practices across several stages of the review ecosystem, including how reviews are obtained, how they are moderated and how star ratings are presented to users.
The CMA’s inquiry into Autotrader and the review platform Feefo concerns whether certain one-star reviews moderated by Feefo were not published on Autotrader’s website and were excluded from overall ratings, potentially depriving consumers of a complete picture of customer experiences. In the case of funeral services provider Dignity, the authority is examining whether staff may have been asked to submit positive reviews of crematoria services, which could have created a misleading impression of genuine customer feedback.
Separately, the regulator is reviewing whether the rating system used by Just Eat may have inflated the star ratings of some restaurants and grocery providers listed on its platform. The investigation into Pasta Evangelists focuses on whether customers were offered discounts on future purchases in exchange for leaving five-star reviews on delivery apps without clearly disclosing the incentive.
These investigations come after new rules under the DMCC Act entered into force in April 2025, designating several practices relating to online reviews as automatically unfair and illegal. These include posting or commissioning fake reviews, failing to disclose incentivised reviews, hiding negative feedback or presenting ratings that give consumers a misleading impression of a product or service. The legislation also grants the CMA new enforcement powers, allowing it to determine consumer law infringements directly without first going through the courts.
With these cases, the CMA has now placed 14 companies under review using its new consumer enforcement powers. If the authority ultimately finds that businesses have infringed the law, it may require them to change their practices and impose fines of up to 10% of their global turnover.
CMA Chief Executive Sarah Cardell emphasised that misleading reviews undermine consumer confidence at a time when households are under financial pressure and rely heavily on online information when making purchasing decisions. She noted that the regulator had previously given businesses time to comply with the new framework and is now using its powers to address potentially harmful practices.
The new investigations build on earlier CMA action in this area, including securing commitments from major platforms such as Amazon and Google to strengthen their systems for detecting and removing fake reviews. The authority has also issued guidance to businesses and conducted compliance checks across more than 100 review publishers to encourage adherence to the new rules.
The CMA will now gather evidence and engage with the companies involved. Depending on the findings, the cases may result in enforcement action, remedies requiring changes in business practices, or the closure of investigations. The authority expects to provide an update on the cases in September 2026.
