The UK Competition and Markets Authority (“CMA“) has announced that three fashion retailers have signed voluntary undertakings to ensure that consumers have a clearer idea of how green their clothes really are. At the end of March 2024, ASOS, Boohoo and George at Asda committed to only make green claims about their products that are accurate, clear and not misleading. At the same time, the CMA also published an open letter to the fashion retail sector stressing that players should ensure that all the green claims they make comply with UK consumer protection law. The commitments will be a particularly useful resource to fashion retailers, and businesses more generally, that are considering how to apply the CMA’s Green Claims Code to their products, and gearing up for potentially more potent interventions by the CMA in this space. To this end, it should be noted that the CMA ominously concludes its open letter by noting that its anticipated new powers under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Bill (“DMCC“), which is currently being approved by Parliament, will allow the CMA for the first time, to impose financial penalties for breaches of consumer protection law, such as misleading green claims, without having to go to court.
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