Safe as houses? Housebuilders promise major future investment to close cartel investigation

The Competition and Markets Authority (the “CMA”) announced on 9 July 2025 that it had secured major commitments from seven housing developers in the UK, highlighting at the forefront a £100 million investment in affordable housing programmes.

The announcement comes in the midst of a CMA investigation into possible illegal information sharing between these seven competitors. The regulator opened the case in February 2024, following a detailed assessment of the state of the housebuilding sector over the prior 12 months. 

The CMA has been investigating allegations that these property companies shared key information like house prices, figures of property viewings and house sales, and the incentives they offered to potential homebuyers (e.g. help towards stamp duty charges). Such behaviour could potentially reduce house price competition in a market that is already inaccessible to millions due to high costs. 

The UK, like many countries, is in a housing crisis. According to the Office of National Statistics the average home in England costs almost eight times the average yearly earnings of someone working full time. Private rents increased by an average of 7% in the last year, making saving up for a deposit even harder, and the proportion of so-called “affordable housing” has fallen in the last 20 years.

In this context, these commitments seem like welcome news. The housebuilders’ payout will go towards affordable housing programmes in all four nations of the UK. They have also offered measures to avoid future illegal information sharing, including industry-wide guidance. 

If the commitments are accepted by the regulator, this would be the highest payment of this kind coming out of one of the CMA’s investigations.  It would also mean that the CMA would not need to reach a conclusion about whether these housebuilders broke the law in the past. Closing the investigation will save public funds in the short term, allowing the CMA to redirect resources to its other work, including investigations into the veterinary services market and tech giants like Google. If agreed, these commitments also secure quick results; the developers will pay out their committed funds within three months.  

However, while these measures may help tackle the housing crisis going forward, they fail to compensate house buyers for increased prices they may have had to pay in the past as a result of illegal behaviour. A commitment of £100m might seem like a significant deterrent, but for groups of companies with a combined revenue of over £22 billion, splitting this sum between them it is not a bad deal.  

The CMA has powers with serious teeth when it comes to illegal information sharing; it can fine businesses up to 10% of their annual global turnover for breaking the law. Where the CMA makes a formal finding that there has been an illegal cartel, this also opens the door to “follow-on” damages claims, allowing those who lost out to seek compensation as part of a collective legal claim. In contrast, by offering commitments voluntarily, these companies do not need to admit to any wrongdoing. 

Anti-competitive information sharing generally increases, or aims to increase, the profits of companies at the expense of consumers. The law recognises that this kind of harmful intention matters; there is no need for a cartel to have achieved its intended effect for there to be a breach of the law.  

So, while homebuyers of the future may enjoy better protections going forward, these commitments offer no financial redress for homebuyers who may have suffered losses as a result of anti-competitive practices. In stopping short of making a formal finding in this context, the CMA may also have missed a crucial opportunity to deter harmful behaviour in the future.