Services/Service 04
By the Time a Regulator Makes Contact, the Review Has Already Begun
ASA complaints, CMA enquiries, consumer group challenges, journalists submitting questions about sustainability; these are not the moments to start thinking about your evidence. These are opportunities to show the high quality of your preparation.
Regulators will rarely give you a heads-up. They usually arrive, having reviewed your public statements, identified the claims that concern them, and formed a preliminary view of why those claims require scrutiny.
Your response is measured against a framework you may not have been applying when the claim was first published.
This gap is what could get you in trouble. We exist to close it.
The standard
Readiness is not a crisis communication plan or a legal retainer. It is an ongoing state of knowing, at all times, that all published claims are defensible and that if someone with regulatory authority decided to look closely, they would find an organisation that takes its obligations seriously.
For that, you need three things that most businesses do not prepare simultaneously:
To be clear, this is not at some point in the future, based on supplier commitment, or pending certification renewal. Published claims have to reflect the evidence that exists and is currently accessible.
Proper review requires that an organisation know who reviews it, when the evidence was checked, who signed off, and when. A regulator investigating misleading claims will want to know how they came to be published. You need an audit trail showing a structured, evidence-led approval, which is different from an email chain where someone said, "looks good to me."
Different claims have different levels of risk. Knowing which of your current statements are most likely to attract scrutiny and why is the difference between managed risk and unpleasant surprises.
What's included
This service is not legal representation but regulatory groundwork that makes everything else, including legal advice, more effective.
We conduct a structured review of public-facing environmental claims (website, social, ESG reports, investor reports, etc.) to identify statements likely to attract ASA or CMA scrutiny. We assess them against the CMA's six-point framework and ASA/CAP standards to surface a complete picture of where risk sits.
We assess your current documentation and how well it supports current claims. Where evidence is sufficient, we confirm it. Where it is partial, outdated, or missing, we tell you exactly what needs to be done to address the issue.
We review how you currently come up with claims, the approval process, and publishing. We identify process gaps to ensure claims do not travel to the publishing stage without the right checks, and recommend the structural changes needed to close them.
We walk your internal teams through what an ASA complaint or CMA enquiry actually looks like in practice. By the end, you'll know what is requested, how quickly, and the typical amount of time it takes to complete each stage. For most organisations, this is the first time anyone has explained it clearly. It changes how seriously your internal teams take due diligence.
If you have already received a complaint, challenge, or regulatory contact, we can review your current position and give you a clear, honest assessment of your current state before you respond. We help you understand the strength of your position and identify what needs addressing. This kind of structured analysis makes it easier for your legal team to do its job.
The regulator's lens
It helps to know what kind of scrutiny regulators apply and how we use it to review your business.
The ASA assesses complaints using the CAP Code. For environmental claims, the core questions are whether:
The adjudications are published and remain on your permanent record. They are used to set precedents that other organisations in the same space watch closely.
The CMA applies consumer protection law. Its Green Claims Code sets out six principles for businesses to follow.
The CMA has shown, through sector-wide reviews of fashion, travel, and FMCG, that it is prepared to investigate entire categories, not just individual operations. If you are a sector under review, the time to act is now.
Both regulators operate under the basic assumption that when you make public claims, you have done the work to support them. If that assumption is proven wrong, the question is whether this was a failure in processes or intentional. That distinction may matter, but neither version ends well.
Who this is for
Businesses that have received a complaint, challenge, or informal regulatory contact.
Organisations facing active CMA or ASA scrutiny, especially in fashion, energy, FMCG, financial services, and travel.
Brands preparing to publish or refresh sustainability claims, reports, or communications.
Companies whose marketing and ESG functions are not currently using a unified governance framework.
Businesses that have never formally assessed whether their current environmental claims meet the CMA and ASA/CAP standards.
Regulatory investigations drain resources, damage reputations, and are largely avoidable. Businesses that perform well under scrutiny are not necessarily the cleanest ones, but those with evidence to support claims and strong internal governance to defend published material.
