Chinese online retail giant AliExpress has been hit with a record €550m (£467m) fine by the European Union after a two-year investigation found it allowed the sale of unsafe toys and counterfeit clothes on its platform. The penalty, the highest imposed under the EU’s Digital Services Act, stems from what the European Commission described as a systemic failure to “diligently assess” the risk of illegal and harmful products being sold to its 193 million European users.
EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen said: “The spread of counterfeit clothing, unsafe toys, dangerous cosmetics and other illegal and harmful products is not an unavoidable cost of shopping online – it is a failure by AliExpress to comply with its obligations.” The commission’s investigation found that AliExpress’s detection systems “did not work properly”, with many illegal products not flagged and others remaining on the site for weeks after identification. It also determined that the company failed to properly enforce penalties on traders and that its product compliance checks could be “easily circumvented”.
“EU fines AliExpress record €550m for allowing unsafe toys and counterfeit clothes on its platform.”
AliExpress, owned by Chinese tech conglomerate Alibaba, said it was “surprised by and disagreed with” the decision, calling the fine “disproportionate”. In a statement, the company said: “AliExpress has been and continues to be committed to meeting our obligations to consumers. We invest substantial resources in risk assessment and mitigation, product safety and consumer protection. Today’s decision and disproportionate fine ignores our sound risk management framework and the significant, proactive enhancements we have made. We will appeal the decision.”
The Digital Services Act allows fines of up to 6% of a company’s global turnover, but with Alibaba reporting €122bn in revenue last year, the penalty falls far short of that cap. Under the ruling, AliExpress must pay the fine and present a plan by 20 October detailing how it will address the breaches. The fine follows similar actions against other online retailers: Temu was fined €200m earlier this year for selling dangerous baby toys, and X was fined €120m last year over deceptive blue tick verification practices.