Euro Car Parks is infamous for dishing out fines but the private parking company has been hit with an almost £475,000 penalty of its own after it failed to hand over information to a regulator.

The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said it had imposed a £473,000 fine after the company did not respond for three months to seven requests for information, including by registered post, email and hand-delivered letter.

It is the first time the CMA has issued a penalty under the new fining powers it was given in 2024.

The regulator sends out “information notices” to companies when deciding whether to open an investigation, and businesses have a legal obligation to comply.

The CMA said Euro Car Parks, which provides payment systems in car parks, only responded after it raised the spectre of a fine.

In its defence, the company claimed it had blocked the watchdog’s emails because it thought they were an attempt to scam the firm. The CMA said it “did not consider this a reasonable excuse” and imposed the penalty in December 2025.

In a statement, the regulator added that Euro Car Parks had taken the step of seeking a high court injunction to stop the company being named, but the application was refused earlier this week.

Hayley Fletcher, the CMA’s senior director of consumer enforcement, said the information requests the company ignored were “essential tools that help us understand the facts and get to the bottom of potential infringements of the law. It is a legal obligation to comply … they are not optional.”

By ignoring its multiple approaches the regulator said it had to expend extra time and resources to obtain the information.

“This is the first time we’ve used our new powers to fine a company for failing to respond to such a notice,” said Fletcher. “It sends a clear message: firms that don’t reply to our requests or refuse to comply risk facing penalties like this one.”

Due to the seriousness of the matter, the CMA fined Euro Car Parks 75% of the maximum possible fixed charge – a total of £473,000. Under its enforcement powers, the regulator can issue a fixed penalty of up to 1% of the company’s annual turnover for this type of breach.

A number of drivers have accused Euro Car Parks of unfairly demanding money for supposed infringements of car park rules. But the CMA confirmed it did not have a consumer enforcement case open against the company and “no assumption should be made that it has infringed consumer law”.