Confidence in a changing consumer landscape

Businesses across all sectors are facing new expectations to demonstrate that their pricing, marketing and commercial practices treat customers fairly and deliver good outcomes.

As consumer protection law tightens and enforcement accelerates, commercial practices are increasingly being tested against new legal standards with limited precedent to guide their application. Authorities, including the CMA and the European Commission, have the power to act directly, without lengthy court processes, imposing substantial fines and remedies.

Meeting regulatory expectations is rarely black and white. Navigating this complexity requires a careful assessment of the economic trade-offs and consumer behaviour. Businesses that cannot demonstrate, with clear empirical evidence, that their practices comply with regulatory expectations and deliver fair outcomes for customers face rising exposure to investigations, fines and reputational harm.

For over a decade, our consumer protection experts have helped businesses to navigate this complex and evolving environment.

From compliance risk to positive outcomes

From proactively managing compliance risk to evidencing good outcomes, our experts provide support throughout the regulatory process, targeted where it matters most.

We combine deep behavioural and empirical expertise with practical experience of how regulators build and assess cases, supporting businesses at every stage.

• Compliance and risk assessment—proactively assessing commercial practices and compliance frameworks, including pricing structures, promotions, subscription terms, disclosures and marketing claims, against legal requirements, and providing independent, trusted assurance to Boards and senior managers.
• Evidence gathering and economic analysis—empirically testing the outcomes of commercial practices using economic and behavioural tools.
• Regulatory engagement—preparing for rapid, well-informed engagement with regulators, including responding to information requests and presenting a clear, evidenced-based narrative.
• Remedy design and redress—supporting the design of proportionate remedies and the ongoing monitoring of consumer outcomes.

Whether you’re responding to a short term information request, or an in-depth investigation, our experts can support you throughout the process.

I was extremely impressed by Oxera’s use of behavioural economics to gather new insights into consumer behaviour. The analysis has made a significant impact with stakeholders in Government, the Regulator and in Parliament. [T]he team were a real pleasure to work with too.

Prakash Chandramohan, Strategy Director, TISA

Unparalleled experience on both sides of the table

Oxera’s experts have extensive experience in advising firms on consumer protection and in complex consumer market investigations, and have held senior positions at major competition authorities, including the European Commission and the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

In the UK, the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (DMCCA) brings consumer protection enforcement in line with competition law, alongside sector-specific regulations. Financial Services firms in the UK have been subject to consumer protection regulation for many years, most recently in the form of outcomes-based regulation under the FCA’s Consumer Duty, and Oxera has a long history as a leading economics consultancy in financial services.

Oxera experts have delivered training to hundreds of FCA staff and helped shape how regulatory tools are applied to consumer protection. Our team has supported firms in assessing the outcomes of commercial practices for over a decade, while contributing to the development of the regulatory framework.

Consumer protection enforcement has intensified across Europe, particularly in online markets, under the evolving Digital Markets Act (DMA) and Digital Services Act (DSA).

We have extensive experience working for both consumers, and defendants in numerous consumer collective and class actions, applying our economic toolkit to analyse consumer issues, behavioural economics, and pricing throughout Europe and beyond.

I can highly recommend Oxera. Their analysis and report gathered substantial media and political interest and enabled us to get a proper debate with senior policymakers. I liked the way that—on the one hand—Oxera made their findings accessible […]; and—on the other hand—they engaged in the technical details of the matter with the experts.

Richard Davies, CEO, Allica Bank

Sector insights, multi-disciplinary depth and authoritative voice

We draw on our dedicated specialists in industries including digital, financial services, and telecoms to ensure that our consumer market capabilities are tailored using deep sector insights.

We harness our extensive expertise in data science and empirical techniques, market investigations and behavioural economics to assess how markets and consumers behave, tailoring the combination of traditional economic analysis and behavioural insight to each case.

Drawing on expertise across our teams, we deliver deep economic analysis to assess the commercial rationale for a practice, its effects on prices and outcomes, and whether perceived harm is supported by the underlying data; behavioural insights help identify where consumers may be influenced by biases such as anchoring or salience, and where choice architecture, defaults or the framing of information could affect decision-making.

Our broader regulatory expertise enables us to ensure that sector-specific rules and market dynamics are reflected in every assessment. We regularly engage with our network of academic expert economists, behavioural scientists and psychologists, guided by the Oxera Economic Council.

Our team has provided expert economic analysis for businesses in sectors including retail banking, retail energy, telecoms, digital comparison tools, private healthcare and consumer credit. 

We maintain an excellent reputation with regulators, and Oxera has provided training and advice on behavioural economics, economic analysis and empirical techniques.