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Rugby's O’Driscoll among influencers named in CCPC list

Former Ireland rugby player Brian O’Driscoll and fitness coach Caroline O’Mahony were issued with compliance notices by the consumer-protection watchdog last year over posts on their social-media accounts.

The Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC) said that it served such notices for the first time last year on influencers who failed to use the correct labels to disclose the commercial nature of the content that they published online.

The commission yesterday (25 March) published its annual Consumer Protection List (CPL) 2024, detailing its consumer-protection enforcement activities.

Posts ‘breached consumer law’

In April last year, it wrote to 26 influencers across a range of sectors and reminded them of their obligations under consumer-protection law in relation to labelling of content.

O’Driscoll and O’Mahony were later served with compliance notices when it was found that posts on their accounts continued to breach consumer law.

The CCPC said that “several” investigations in relation to influencers were continuing, and further outcomes were expected this year.

“Our research shows that almost a quarter of consumers who purchased a product as a result of an influencer promoting it subsequently felt misled,” said CCPC chair Brian McHugh.

Five prosecutions

The report also shows that five traders were prosecuted in court – including Tesco and Homesavers.

The watchdog served 23 compliance notices on traders – three to influencers – and 47 fixed-payment notices.

The cause of the fines ranged from traders misleading consumers by displaying the incorrect selling price of goods, to failing to indicate the selling price of goods entirely.

‘Meaningful’ fines call

The CCPC carried out 205 consumer protection last year – up 12% compared with the previous year. This included 164 in-store inspections, 41 online inspections, and 21 vehicle trader inspections.

The commission chair repeated a call for greater powers to impose fines on non-compliant businesses.

“Currently, the level of fines that can be issued for breaches of consumer-protection law is not a deterrent for large businesses, and that is why we are calling on the Government to give us the power to issue meaningful fines to companies breaking consumer law,” McHugh said.