Welcome to our monthly quick fire round up of the Retail and Consumer sector's legal and market developments that should be on your radar this September. This edition features:
In this edition:
- R&C Risk Radar – half-year update
- AI labelling under the EU AI Act – what you need to know
- New rules on Green claims this month affecting R&C businesses
- Scope of right to work checks extended from 1 October
- Don’t Miss – Our new Advertising and Media Briefing
R&C Risk Radar – half-year update
We've just published the latest update to our Retail & Consumer Risk Radar 2026, highlighting the legal, regulatory and operational developments we believe will shape risk priorities for the sector over the coming months.
Register to receive the update here: AG's R&C Risk Radar - H2 2026
Some of the key updates include:
- Product liability & safety: increasing obligations for consumer products, software and AI-enabled products, alongside wider product safety reform widening the scope of risk and UK/EU divergence.
- Sustainability & ESG: implementation of new packaging, recyclability, and producer responsibility requirements, with growing cost and operational implications.
- Green claims & consumer enforcement: new restrictions on green marketing claims and sustainability labels, alongside increasing enforcement activity around pricing practices.
- Employment: Employment Rights Act 2025 roll-out continues in phases through August, October 2026 and 2027, including changes to unfair dismissal.
- Digital, AI & cyber: phased implementation of the EU AI Act, including transparency obligations, alongside evolving data protection requirements and growing focus on digital advertising/commerce, customer data and cyber resilience.
- Operational resilience & venue security: growing focus on health and safety, public venue security and Martyn's Law preparedness, with enforcement anticipated from 2027.
- Corporate governance and liability: corporate criminal liability now extends across all offences committed by a senior manager acting within the actual or apparent of their authority – a materially lower threshold than existed at common law and a much wider scope than under ECCTA 2023; identity-verification and sustainability-reporting duties add further governance and evidence requirements.
Please do get in touch with Laura Martin if there are any particular areas you would like to discuss.
AI labelling under the EU AI Act – what you need to know
Businesses that provide or use certain AI systems in the EU now face new transparency obligations under Article 50 of the AI Act (in force since 2 August 2026). In practice, this may require informing individuals when they are interacting with an AI system, e.g., via chatbots or voicebots, ensuring that AI‑generated content carries machine‑readable markers, informing individuals when emotion recognition or biometric categorisation systems are being used, and clearly labelling certain AI‑generated or manipulated content, such as deepfakes, and AI‑generated text on matters of public interest. Organisations should therefore map their AI use cases, work out whether they are acting as providers or deployers for each use, review customer notices and labelling processes, assess technical solutions for marking AI content, and document their compliance approach.
If you have any questions and/or would like find out more, please contact Szymon Sieniewicz
New rules on Green Claims from 27 September
From 27 September 2026, Member States will be required to apply new rules on green claims as provided for by the Empowering Consumers for the Green Transition Directive (EU) 2024/825 (ECGT).
While greenwashing is already prohibited under general consumer protection principles, ECGT has refocussed attention on the issue and provides specific rules targeting certain problematic practices including:
- the use of generic green claims (e.g. "eco" or "green"),
- carbon neutral claims based on offsetting of GHGs,
- the use of self-created sustainability labels, and
- forward looking / future performance claims which are not backed up by a detailed (and verified) implementation plan.
To the extent not already doing so, our recommendation is that businesses urgently review and update any green claims playbooks that they have in place, as well as auditing any existing green claims in use, including reviewing the underlying evidence relied upon to substantiate those claims, to determine what actions, if any, they need to take to update, remove or take down problematic green claims.
If you have any questions and/or would like find out more, please contact Rachel MacLeod
Scope of right to work checks extended from 1 October
Currently, an employer only needs to carry out right to work checks for those individuals directly employed by it. From 1 October 2026, the right to work check regime will be extended to cover different categories of workers/ contractors and will extend along the supply chain. The key points are:
- The Home Office right to work check regime will extend to workers, individual sub-contractors, “online matching services” (e.g. gig economy/ online platforms such as taxi or food delivery apps) and substitutes.
- This means that civil penalties may now move up the supply chain – i.e. the Home Office could fine companies for engaging illegal workers who are not their direct employees.
- There may be an exception to a civil penalty where commercial contracts contain certain prescribed terms.
Please do get in touch with Sarah Harrop if there are any particular areas you would like to discuss.
Don't miss - our new Advertising and Media Briefing
See our new report, Media and Advertising: Big Trends For 2026
With media and advertising spend increasingly receiving greater scrutiny from CFOs and senior strategy executives within clients, this report explores some of the recent trends we are seeing in the market. There appears to be a greater focus on monetising data and internal digital media, as well as ensuring businesses get better returns on any spend on media and advertising.
Key highlights include:
- The increased use by businesses of "Commerce Media": businesses are increasing become sellers of media and advertising to 3rd party brands; generating revenue for the business
- AI in your media and advertising: the way in which marketing is delivered and measured is increasingly impacted by AI
- Merging strategy and marketing: marketing and strategy functions are combining as marketing moves closer to core business strategy
This is the first of a series of reports, we hope you find it provides useful insights for supporting your strategy around media, marketing and advertising.
To receive the full briefing, request access here
