Letter to stakeholders about the Authority’s position on imposing financial penalties
Correspondence and other
- Publication date
This open letter sets out the Authority's position on future financial penalties.
Our Strategic Objectives for enforcement emphasise the need to deliver credible deterrence and ensure visible and meaningful consequences for businesses that fail consumers and do not comply. We have been reviewing our approach to imposing financial penalties so as to ensure we achieve these objectives.
The Authority has decided to place a greater emphasis on deterrence when imposing penalties for future breaches. This is likely to mean a substantial increase from the levels of penalty that it has typically imposed to date. When setting the amount of a penalty, the Authority will also continue to recognise the value of companies promptly reporting to us and putting right any non-compliance that they have identified.
The Authority will apply the penalty increase under our existing penalties policy in investigations where the behaviour in question comes to our attention on or after 1 June 2014.
You can read our letter in full below.