Published undertakings and court actions
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About the undertakings and court action pages
The result of an investigation under consumer legislation may be an undertaking given by the trader, or a court order (or other action) which has been imposed.
These may be published on the consumer regulations area of this website as reports in order to:
- satisfy the statutory requirement to make public such outcomes
- facilitate the performance of the Office of Fair Trading's functions, and
- provide a source of information which enables businesses to identify practices which have been found to breach consumer protection laws and regulations, with a view to facilitating compliance.
These reports are freely available to the public from this area of the site, and it is the Office of Fair Trading's intention to publish and make available the outcome of investigations as and when these reports become available.
Retention policy
Download the OFT policy on the retention of undertakings on the public site (pdf 82 kb)
The OFT's enforcement role is changing
From 2 April 2013, under changes to the consumer protection regime introduced by Government, there will be a greater role for the local authority Trading Standards Services in the enforcement of consumer protection law at national level. The OFT will retain all of its current consumer enforcement powers but will tend to use them where breaches of consumer protection law point to systemic failures in a market. This means cases will more often be taken against a number of firms in a market, rather than cases against individual firms, unless changing the behaviour of one firm would set a precedent or have other market-wide implications.
The OFT will also retain the lead role for the enforcement of the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999 although the Trading Standards Services will have equal enforcement powers.
In the first instance consumers are encouraged to contact Citizens Advice regarding any problems they may have in buying goods or services.
Back to: Consumer enforcement
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