Emma Sleep welcomes today's judgment and is grateful that the court engaged fully with our arguments.

About the process

The CMA opened a review of Emma's UK selling practices in November 2022. From the outset, Emma engaged openly with the process, providing information, sales data, and internal documentation as requested. We took the CMA's concerns seriously and began making changes to our practices immediately.

What we changed, and when

In December 2022, within weeks of the CMA's initial engagement, Emma implemented a series of changes to its urgency messaging practices - including how we used countdown timers, demand messaging, and limited-time sale claims. These changes were made proactively, ahead of any formal requirement to do so, because we believed it was the right thing to do for our customers. Through 2023 and into January 2024, Emma went further on urgency messaging. We removed demand-related messaging such as low stock and high demand alerts, reduced the use of limited-time sale claims, and overhauled how countdown timers were used - ensuring they reflected genuine promotional periods. In May 2026, we formally agreed these measures in the form of a consent order. The order reflected urgency messaging changes that Emma had already implemented years earlier, meaning that part of the case had already been resolved before the trial.

Why we did not settle the remaining issue

The outstanding dispute, which the court ruled on today, concerns a specific mechanism the CMA sought to include in an enforcement order - a rule that would impose a fixed limit on the proportion of products Emma can sell at a discounted price, applied at the level of individual product lines. Emma's position has never been to resist accountability on pricing - we have made sweeping, voluntary changes to how we run promotions, and where concerns were raised, we acted.

In January 2024, Emma explored how the proposed mechanism would operate in practice, while continuing to disagree with the approach. What this demonstrated was exactly why we had concerns: the mechanism proved unworkable in practice, and the impact on consumers was the opposite of what the CMA intended. With fewer promotions available, Emma would have been required to raise average retail prices, meaning UK customers could have paid more for the same products. That potential harm to consumers is why we believed a judge should determine whether this mechanism was the right tool, and that is what has now happened.

Today's judgment, in which the court rejected the CMA's request for an order mandating such a mechanism, upholds Emma's arguments and confirms that responsible, evidence-based pricing - not rigid numerical thresholds - is the appropriate standard. We appreciate that the court has followed our arguments in rejecting the CMA's volume mechanism, casting doubt on the CMA's guidance from 2024.

We have consistently said that clear, fair rules should apply across the sleep and wider retail sector, not selectively. We welcome today's outcome and look forward to revised guidance, so that all market participants can respond accordingly, ensuring that all UK consumers benefit equally from consistent standards.

Our focus remains where it has always been: high-quality sleep products trusted by more than 10 million sleepers across 25 countries, and an experience our customers can rely on - night after night.