What this guidebook covers
Dealers meet rivals at OEM dealer councils, trade associations and local events, and share staff who move between groups. In April 2025 the CMA fined 10 car manufacturers and 2 trade bodies £77.7 million. Fines are based on the whole group's worldwide turnover, and individuals in a cartel face up to 5 years in prison.
This guidebook covers 6 competition standards with 17 checkpoints: no price-fixing, no market or customer sharing, no bid rigging, freedom to set your own prices, safe trade association meetings, and compliance training with a dawn raid plan.
The 6 competition standards
| Code | Standard | Ideal fix time |
|---|---|---|
| CMP-01 | No price-fixing between dealers | Immediate |
| CMP-02 | No market or customer sharing | Immediate |
| CMP-03 | No bid rigging | Immediate |
| CMP-04 | Free to set your own prices | 30 days |
| CMP-05 | Safe trade association meetings | 30 days |
| CMP-06 | Compliance training and dawn raid plan | 30 days |
How to run a UK competition law compliance audit, step by step
- Confirm what applies. Identify contact with rivals (dealer councils, associations, chat groups) and the fleet tenders you bid for. Genuine agency arrangements with manufacturers are treated differently: take legal advice on your OEM contracts.
- Walk the site, standard by standard. Score each of the 17 checkpoints Pass, Fail or N/A. N/A only where the standard rules it out, with the reason recorded. Review fleet tender files and pricing decisions, and check meeting agendas and minutes from trade association meetings.
- Capture the evidence. A pass counts only with proof captured at the time of the audit: tender files, pricing approvals, meeting minutes, training records and the dawn raid plan.
- Give every fail an owner and a fix time. Record what you saw and who owns the fix. Each standard carries an ideal fix time, from immediate to 30 days, counted from audit submission (see the table above).
- Fix it, then prove it. The site fixes the cause and uploads proof of closure; the auditor checks the proof before closing the finding.
- Re-check at the next audit. Confirm closed findings stay closed, and look for the same fail at your other sites so one gap doesn't repeat across the network.
Who this guidebook is for
- Dealer principals and directors
- Sales and fleet managers
- Auditors
A reference document, not legal advice. Fines and rules change: check the current text with the regulator or your legal adviser before acting.
