What Is the Consumer Rights Act 2015?
The Consumer Rights Act 2015 (CRA) is the primary law governing consumer contract fairness in the United Kingdom. In force since 1 October 2015, it consolidated several earlier statutes (the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977, the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1999, and parts of the Sale of Goods Act 1979) into a single framework covering goods, digital content, and services.
For businesses that use clickwrap agreements, the CRA matters because Part 2 subjects every term shown to a UK consumer to a fairness test. A term that creates a significant imbalance against the consumer, or that is not in plain and intelligible language, is not binding, even if the consumer clicked "I agree." Courts can strike out unfair terms, and the CMA and sector regulators can act against them across an entire industry.
Who Does the CRA Apply To?
The CRA governs contracts between a trader and a consumer: a trader acts for purposes relating to their business, while a consumer is an individual acting wholly or mainly outside their business. Purely business-to-business contracts fall outside it (though they may still be caught by the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977).
The CRA applies when you:
- Sell goods, digital content, or services to UK consumers, online or offline.
- Present terms to an individual acting in a personal capacity, including through a clickwrap agreement.
- Offer to UK consumers from any location, since the Act applies regardless of where your business is incorporated or your servers sit.
If your clickwrap agreement is shown to UK consumers, its terms must meet the CRA's fairness and transparency requirements.
Consumer Rights Act and Clickwrap Agreements
Part 2 of the CRA judges every term in a consumer contract, including your terms of service, on two things: whether the term is fair, and whether the consumer could understand and notice it. Sections 62 (fairness), 64 (prominence of core terms), and 68 (plain language) do the work, and they shape clickwrap design in the ways below.
How CRA Affects Clickwrap Design
Section 62 sets the fairness test: a term is unfair if, against the requirement of good faith, it causes a significant imbalance in the parties' rights to the consumer's detriment. Good faith here means dealing openly and fairly, not merely honestly, and an unfair term simply does not bind the consumer.
The grey list flags classic clickwrap clauses. Schedule 2 names terms that may be unfair, several aimed squarely at clickwrap: disproportionately high default charges (para 5), terms that bind consumers to conditions they had no real chance to read before accepting (para 9), and clauses letting the trader change the terms unilaterally without a stated reason (para 11).
One prohibition is absolute. Under Section 65, any term excluding liability for death or personal injury from negligence is automatically unenforceable, however prominently a clickwrap displays it.
Core terms must be transparent and prominent. Price and main-subject-matter terms escape the fairness test only if they are in plain language and brought to an average consumer's attention (s.64). In Office of Fair Trading v Abbey National plc [2009] UKSC 6 the court read that exemption broadly, but the CRA's added prominence requirement narrows it: terms buried behind pages of scrolling lose the exemption and face the full fairness test.
Where a clickwrap supplies digital content, the CRA implies that it be of satisfactory quality, fit for purpose, and as described (ss.34-41), and Section 47 voids any term excluding those rights. So a clause disclaiming liability for bugs, downtime, or missing functionality is unenforceable to that extent.
Keep any charges proportionate. Early-termination fees, overage charges, and penalties must reflect a legitimate business interest, not punish the consumer. In ParkingEye Ltd v Beavis [2015] UKSC 67 an £85 parking charge held up because it was proportionate to a genuine interest; a charge that goes beyond protecting that interest is vulnerable to challenge.
What Must Be Shown Under CRA
Section 68 requires every written term to be in plain, intelligible language and legible. This is not best practice; it is a statutory obligation covering every term in a clickwrap, including those behind hyperlinks, scroll boxes, and pop-ups. To meet it, the clickwrap should show:
- Plain, intelligible language for every term, with any ambiguity read in the consumer's favour (s.69).
- Prominent core terms like pricing, auto-renewal, and cancellation penalties, placed where an average consumer would notice them.
- Fresh notice of material changes, presented through a new clickwrap flow that highlights what changed (Schedule 2, para 11).
- Narrow, specific exclusion clauses that never exclude liability for death or personal injury (ss.62, 65).
The CMA's unfair contract terms guidance (CMA37) gives worked examples to check your terms against, including clauses that give the trader sole discretion over whether goods conform, cap liability at a nominal amount, or shift the burden of proof onto the consumer.
What Records You Must Keep Under CRA
The CRA imposes no standalone recordkeeping duty, but if a term is challenged you must be able to show it was fair, transparent, and prominent when accepted. A defensible record keeps:
- The exact version accepted - The full text, layout, and formatting as the consumer saw it, with every historical version archived.
- Evidence of prominence - How core terms were surfaced: screenshots of the clickwrap, UI specs, or A/B test data.
- Plain-language review - Readability checks, legal review notes, or consumer testing behind the wording.
- CMA37 compliance checks - A record that terms were assessed against the CMA guidance and Schedule 2, and what changed as a result.
- Complaints log - Consumer complaints about specific terms and how they were resolved.
Keep historical versions, not just the current one. If a consumer challenges a term accepted years ago, you must reproduce exactly what they saw, so a system that overwrites past versions is a liability. Regulated sectors, overseen by the FCA, Ofcom, or Ofgem under Schedule 3, may impose stricter requirements on top.