The Chinese retail giant AliExpress has been ordered to pay a record €550m (£470m) fine by the European Commission, marking the largest penalty issued under the bloc’s Digital Services Act (DSA). The legislation was specifically designed to protect consumers from deceptive marketing, addictive practices, and the sale of illegal goods. The commission’s decision follows a two-year investigation into the platform’s failure to prevent the sale of harmful items, including unsafe toys, dangerous cosmetics, and counterfeit products.
A senior commission official stated that the size of the fine reflects the gravity of the company’s failure to implement effective mitigating measures. The investigation revealed that AliExpress did not possess sufficient staff to properly assess product legality, with some employees given mere seconds to evaluate whether items met EU safety standards. "Many illegal products, from counterfeit products to unsafe toys and dangerous cosmetics, circulated on the platform and, even if detected, remained online for multiple weeks," the commission said. The commission reported that millions of products flagged as illegal under EU law reappeared online, sometimes remaining accessible for over a month.
While AliExpress holds formal terms and conditions requiring sellers to comply with EU law, the commission found that these were easily bypassed. Sellers were able to miscategorize counterfeit luxury items as non-branded goods to avoid detection. Through its internal testing, the commission found large-scale breaches despite the company’s claims to be operating within the scope of the EU’s “safety gate”, a rapid alert system for non-food products that allows unsafe products to be quickly identified, recalled or banned.
AliExpress, which is the largest Chinese online retailer in the EU with 193 million users, immediately denounced the fine as “disproportionate.” The company stated that it intends to appeal the decision, arguing that the commission ignored its existing risk management framework and the significant enhancements it has already implemented. The €550m penalty represents less than 1% of the €122bn revenue generated by the platform’s parent company, Alibaba, last year, though the EU had the authority to impose a maximum fine of up to 6% of global annual revenue. This ruling follows previous EU actions against other platforms, including fines of €200m for Temu and €120m for X.
Previous investigations by the EU of a sample of products sold on large retail platforms including Shein found 65% of cosmetics, 63% of food supplements and 60% of personal protection equipment, such as hard hats and steel toe cap boots for building sites, were non-compliant.
AliExpress is the largest Chinese online retail operator in the EU with 193 million users, making it significantly bigger than Shein with 156 million and Temu with 130 million.
