The interests of consumers are best served by markets that are open, fair and competitive. Consumer and competition legislation exists to promote and protect the interests of consumers and to ensure that firms within a market compete with one another to deliver choice and value for consumers.

ICF GHK works with clients in the UK and across Europe to provide research, evaluation and policy advice on consumer policy. As lead partner of the Consumer Policy Evaluation Consortium (CPEC), ICF GHK has undertaken a number of studies on consumer support mechanisms, proposals for new EU legislation and judicial and other means of redress in the context of the European Internal Market and competition law.

In the UK, ICF GHK’s recent work includes an in-depth ex-post evaluation study for the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to measure the impacts of its 2004 market study into doorstep selling and a detailed study for the OFT which looked at issues of patient choice and competition to inform an OFT  market study into private healthcare.