Who: The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) and advertisers t/a Luxelle-London and Muse
Where: United Kingdom
When: 9 April 2025
Law stated as at: 28 May 2025
What happened:
Website and social media ads for Luxelle-London, an online clothing retailer, stated that the company’s online store was closing down. The return and refund policy on the website said “Before returning any item, please contact us by email to obtain the correct return address. This address cannot be obtained elsewhere, so it’s essential to reach out for accurate information.”
The home page of the website of online fashion retailer, Muse, included the text “MUSE LONDON” and featured a photo of a London street with a London bus, Union Jack flags and red telephone boxes. The website’s refund policy page stated “…we accept returns to our UK warehouse. For more information on how to initiate a return, please contact our customer service team at “. The “Shipping in Transit” section of the policy referred to the “shipping process from Asia”.
In both cases, the complainants understood that the companies were based in or shipped their goods from China and questioned whether the ads misleadingly implied that they were based in the UK. The ASA also considered whether the ads breached the UK Code of Non-broadcast Advertising and Direct and Promotional Marketing (CAP Code) by omitting the marketers’ identity and geographical address.
Not based in the UK
The ASA said that the repeated references to London in both companies’ ads implied that the advertisers were based in the UK.
Luxelle-London’s ads were headed “Luxelle-London” and the website and email address included a reference to “luxelle-london”. Further, the website included a UK Chamber of Commerce number for the company.
The website url and email for Muse used a “co.uk” domain, and the ad referred to the company having a warehouse in the UK to which returns could be sent. The ASA considered that the reference to the “shipping process from Asia” on the refund policy page was not sufficiently prominent to counter the impression, provided by the above-mentioned images of London on the home page, that the company was based in the UK.
Since both companies gave the impression that they were based in the UK and also did not confirm their geographical business addresses, the ASA concluded that the ads were misleading.
Omitted material information
The CAP Code states that, in ads that quote prices for advertised products, such as both the Muse and Luxelle-London ads, the geographical address of the marketer is material information, and omitting such information renders the ads misleading.
Since neither website contained any information regarding the geographical address from which the advertiser operated (save for, in the case of Muse, the reference to the “shipping process from Asia”), the ASA concluded that they breached the CAP Code.
Why this matters:
The ASA considered the rulings based on the CAP Code as it stood before the unfair commercial practices provisions in the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024 (DMCCA) came into force on 6 April 2025. On that date, the wording of some of the rules in the advertising codes was updated to align with the DMCCA’s changes. The DMCCA, as with the previous Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 (CPUT), includes prohibitions on omitting “material information” from an invitation to purchase, which is defined as the provision of information to a consumer that indicates the characteristics of a product and its price. “Material information” includes, among other things, the trader’s identity (and the identity of any person on whose behalf the trader is acting) and the trader’s business address. The DMCCA now also includes any business email in “material information”. While under CPUT, the omission of material information was only unfair if it affected the transactional decision the consumer made, under the DMCCA it is now a prohibited commercial practice in all circumstances.
Further, under the DMCCA, the Competition and Markets Authority is now empowered to enforce consumer law breaches directly, without needing to go to court first. Marketers, therefore, now must ensure that all advertising materials that describe a product’s characteristics and include a price contain the “material information” mandated by the DMCCA and the advertising codes, including both the business address and the email address.
