Commission found illegal products remained online for weeks after detection
The European Commission’s investigation, which lasted more than two years, found that AliExpress failed to implement adequate systems to prevent the listing of prohibited goods. Many illegal products, including counterfeit clothing, unsafe toys, and dangerous cosmetics, were promoted through the platform’s recommendation systems and remained online for multiple weeks after detection, even when flagged, the commission said.
Henna Virkkunen, the commission’s executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy, said in a statement: “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 under the Digital Services Act.”
“Scale is not an excuse; risks must be identified and addressed systematically to ensure consumers can safely shop online,” Virkkunen said. “Today, we are holding AliExpress to this standard and request it to take action.”
The commission said AliExpress did not have enough staff to assess the legality of products, sometimes giving them just “tens of seconds” to judge whether a product met EU standards. The company’s internal risk assessments also failed, and the commission found that sellers could easily bypass barriers by, for example, “miscategorising” a counterfeit fashion label as non-branded.
AliExpress operated terms and conditions that appeared compliant with EU law — requiring retailers not to place illegal products on the platform — but the commission found that in practice sellers could easily list non-compliant goods, the Guardian reported.
The size of the fine reflected “the nature and gravity” of the platform’s failure to implement mitigating measures to stop consumers being offered harmful or dangerous goods, a senior commission official said.
The €550 million penalty is the largest imposed under the DSA, which came into force in 2024. It exceeds the €200 million fine levied on Temu in May and the $120 million penalty issued last year against Elon Musk’s X. Temu remains under EU investigation on other issues and may face additional fines, the commission said.
AliExpress immediately condemned the fine. “We disagree with today’s decision and the disproportionate fine, which does not adequately reflect our established framework and the significant, proactive enhancements we have made,” the company said in a statement. “We are carefully reviewing the decision and considering all available options.”
While the fine is the largest DSA penalty to date, it represents less than 1% of the €122 billion in revenue that AliExpress’s parent company, Alibaba, generated last year, according to the Guardian. The commission could have fined AliExpress up to 6% of its global annual revenue.
Previous EU investigations of a sample of products sold on large retail platforms, including Shein, found that 65% of cosmetics, 63% of food supplements, and 60% of personal protection equipment were non-compliant, the commission said.
AliExpress is the largest online retail operator in the EU with 193 million users, significantly more than Shein’s 156 million and Temu’s 130 million, the commission said.