Published by Global Banking and Finance Review
Posted on September 23, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 21, 2026
France fined PrettyLittleThing €1.3M for misleading discounts. The DGCCRF found deceptive practices, impacting Debenhams' future plans.
PARIS (Reuters) -France's consumer protection authority said on Tuesday it had fined Debenhams-owned online fashion retailer PrettyLittleThing 1.3 million euros ($1.5 million) for deceptive commercial practices.
The fine follows an investigation by the Directorate-General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Control (DGCCRF) that found PrettyLittleThing misled consumers about the discounts they could benefit from when shopping on the prettylittlething.fr website, the authority said.
A PrettyLittleThing spokesperson said: "The issues raised were based on the period from November 2022 to May 2023, which was overseen by previous management, and have long since been resolved in agreement with the regulator."
Debenhams has said it is exploring a potential sale of PrettyLittleThing, which suffered a 23% drop in annual revenue and reported an 84.1 million pound ($114 million) pretax loss in its latest financial year, ended February 28.
This is the second time in three months the competition authority has fined a fast-fashion company over fake discounts, having hit Shein with a 40 million euro fine in July.
($1 = 0.8477 euros)
($1 = 0.7394 pounds)
(Reporting by Dominique Vidalon. Additional reporting Helen Reid. Editing by Mark Potter and Nick Zieminski)
Misleading discounts occur when retailers advertise a price reduction that is not genuine or is exaggerated, deceiving consumers about the actual savings.
Consumer protection refers to laws and regulations designed to ensure the rights of consumers, promoting fair trade, competition, and accurate information in the marketplace.
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