EU Slaps AliExpress With Record €550 Million Fine Over Illegal Products
The European Union has imposed a record €550 million (£467 million) fine on Chinese e-commerce platform AliExpress after concluding that the company failed to adequately prevent the sale of illegal and unsafe products on its marketplace.
The European Commission said its two-year investigation found that AliExpress had breached its obligations under the Digital Services Act by failing to properly assess and address the risks posed by counterfeit, unsafe and illegal goods.
According to the Commission, products including counterfeit clothing, unsafe toys and potentially dangerous cosmetics were allowed to remain available on the platform because the company’s monitoring systems were ineffective.
EU Executive Vice-President for Tech Sovereignty, Security and Democracy, Henna Virkkunen, said consumers should not have to accept the presence of illegal products as a normal part of online shopping.
She argued that the continued availability of counterfeit and unsafe goods reflected AliExpress’s failure to comply with its legal responsibilities.
Investigators found that the platform’s systems frequently failed to identify illegal listings, while products that were flagged often remained on sale for several weeks. The Commission also said AliExpress did not consistently sanction sellers found to be offering prohibited goods and that its compliance checks could be easily bypassed.
AliExpress, owned by Chinese technology giant Alibaba, serves about 193 million users across Europe, making it one of the region’s largest online marketplaces and larger than rival Chinese platforms Shein and Temu in terms of European users.
The penalty is the largest ever issued under the EU’s Digital Services Act, legislation introduced to strengthen oversight of major online platforms and require them to do more to tackle illegal content and products.
Although the law allows fines of up to six per cent of a company’s global annual revenue, the penalty falls well below that threshold. Alibaba reported global revenue of approximately €122 billion last year.
AliExpress rejected the Commission’s findings, describing the fine as disproportionate and confirming that it intends to appeal the decision.
The company said it remains committed to consumer protection and has invested heavily in product safety, risk assessment and compliance measures. It added that the Commission had failed to recognise improvements already made to its risk management framework.
Under the ruling, AliExpress must pay the fine and submit a compliance plan by 20 October outlining the measures it will take to address the violations identified by regulators.
The latest enforcement action follows similar penalties imposed under the Digital Services Act. Earlier this year, Temu was fined €200 million over the sale of illegal products, including unsafe children’s toys, while social media platform X received a €120 million fine last year after regulators concluded that its paid verification system misled users and increased the risk of online scams.
