United Kingdom: Competition and Markets Authority accepts Amazon’s commitments to tackle fake reviews

On 6 June 2025, the UK's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) announced that Amazon Europe Core SARL had provided an undertaking to address concerns regarding fake and misleading reviews (FMRs) and catalogue abuse on its UK platform. This requires Amazon to improve its systems for identifying, investigating and removing FMRs and instances of catalogue abuse, with defined thresholds and performance targets in place. Amazon must also provide clear and accessible mechanisms for consumers and businesses to report such abuse, along with specified investigation timelines. The undertaking also introduces mitigation measures for suspicious reviews, such as reduced visibility and adjusted weighting in aggregated star ratings. Individuals and selling partners found to have engaged in FMR or catalogue abuse may face sanctions, including the suspension or termination of review privileges or commercial relationships. Amazon must submit an implementation statement within 120 days, as well as annual compliance statements until 31 May 2028. These statements must report on performance indicators and adherence to the overarching objective. The undertaking applies for three annual reporting periods and does not constitute an admission of liability. Failure to comply may result in enforcement action under section 215 of the Enterprise Act 2002. This follows the CMA’s investigation into Amazon’s review practices, which was launched on 25 June 2021 concerning potential breaches of UK consumer protection law.