Enforcement & Penalties: What Happens If You Get This Wrong

FILDI Ltd is not a law firm. The DMCCA Subscription Hub reflects our understanding of publicly available government sources as of the date shown on each page, and parts of the underlying regulation are still being finalised.

Nothing in this section is a substitute for advice from a qualified legal professional about your specific circumstances.

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There are two separate layers of consequence here, and it's worth keeping them distinct. One operates contract by contract, between you and an individual customer. The other operates at a regulatory level, between you and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA). Getting the first one wrong can trigger the second.

Individual consumer remedies

The DMCCA builds a set of obligations into every in-scope subscription contract automatically, regardless of what your own terms say. These are called implied terms, and breaching one, failing to send a reminder notice, for example, gives the customer a right to cancel the contract.

The government originally proposed that a customer would need to show they'd suffered a financial loss to claim a refund for this kind of breach. Consumer groups and enforcers pushed back hard, pointing out that in practice this would make the remedy almost impossible for an ordinary customer to use. The government listened, and the April 2026 response commits to publishing a specific list of breaches that automatically qualify for a refund, with no need to prove financial loss.

The refund calculation for these breaches is more generous than a simple pro-rata correction. Where a customer has become liable for a payment because of a breach, they're presumed entitled to a refund of everything paid from when the breach became operational (an exact definition is still to come in regulations) through to when they actually cancel. In practice, this means a single missed reminder notice can end up costing more than the value of that one missed notice, since the repayment obligation runs for the whole affected period, not just the payment closest to the breach.

CMA enforcement

Separately from individual customer remedies, the CMA has its own direct enforcement powers under the DMCCA, already in force since April 2025 for the parts of the Act currently live. These let the CMA fine businesses directly for breaches of consumer protection law, without needing to go through the courts first, with penalties that can reach a significant percentage of a business's global annual turnover under the Act's general enforcement framework.

The CMA hasn't been shy about using this. It's opened well over a dozen investigations under its new DMCCA powers since April 2025, and in April 2026 it issued its first-ever financial penalty under the Act, a multi-million pound fine for drip pricing, a different practice to anything covered in this hub, but a clear signal of appetite. The subscription regime isn't live yet, so there's no CMA subscription-specific enforcement track record to point to, but the CMA's broader behaviour under the Act so far suggests this won't be an area treated lightly once it does take effect.

What's still open

The precise penalty framework specifically for subscription-contract breaches, thresholds, aggravating factors, how CMA discretion will actually be exercised in this area, hasn't been set out yet and will likely come through secondary legislation and guidance. What is already clear is the general shape: CMA enforcement powers under the DMCCA are real, already being used elsewhere in the Act, and not merely theoretical.

What to check now

• Build a genuine audit trail for your notices, not just a policy that says you send them. If a customer disputes ever receiving a reminder notice, being able to show delivery matters more under a "no need to prove loss" regime than it used to.

• Treat "minor" compliance gaps as real financial exposure, not paperwork issues. The refund calculation for automatic-breach claims can cover an extended period, not just the transaction closest to the fault.

• Don't assume the absence of a subscription-specific CMA track record means low risk. The CMA's conduct elsewhere under the DMCCA is the more useful signal right now.

Want a clear picture of where your actual compliance gaps and financial exposure sit? [Book a DMCCA readiness review] and we'll walk through it with you.

This article is general information, not legal advice, and reflects our understanding of publicly available sources as of the date below. Always verify against primary government sources before making a compliance decision.

Last reviewed: 24 August 2026