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UK: CMA says lawyers must be more transparent on costs

By  |  December 15, 2016

Lawyers must be more transparent over the cost and quality of service they provide to ensure consumers get value for money, the Competition and Markets Authority has concluded in its long-awaited final report on the legal services market.

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    The competition watchdog said legal services for individual consumers and small businesses were not working well amid a disparity of cost for similar services in addition to a lack of information on price, quality, and service.

    The CMA also found that while the current regulatory framework is not a major barrier to competition, it may not be sustainable in the long term. In particular, the CMA said the framework is not sufficiently flexible to apply proportionate risk-based regulation which reflects differences across legal services and could harm competition.

    The watchdog recommended that the Ministry of Justice reviews the current framework to make it more flexible and targeted at protecting consumers in areas where it is most needed.

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