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Asda has successfully ensured its promotions no longer mislead customers, following scathing criticism from the Competition & Markets Authority.


The authority welcomed the supermarket’s efforts to make promotions clearer, after singling out its offers for criticism last summer.

Asda agreed to change the way offers were advertised following a super complaint by the consumer group Which? against several supermarkets in April 2015, which led the CMA to get involved.

The CMA hit out at Asda for incidences of misleading ‘was/now’ pricing periods, price increases for multibuys and price establishment during multibuys.

Asda always denied any specific wrongdoing but last year, the watchdog said it had “particular engagement with Asda in relation to specific areas of concern”.

The CMA said it was content Asda had stuck to its commitment to clearly label offers and discounts and welcomed the “positive changes” it had made.

The changes mean the supermarket does not display a ‘now’ price for longer than it displayed the original ‘was’ price. It has also reviewed its multibuy offers to ensure they always offer a saving when compared with a single product before the offer.

An Asda spokeswoman said: “We welcome the CMA’s recognition of our serious commitment to offer customers the most trusted low prices of any full range supermarket. We were happy to work with the CMA to make sure that our promotion rules are clear and customers have access to great prices in thousands of products every day.”