Record fine of 550 million euros for AliExpress over illegal products

The EU is imposing a record fine of 550 million euros on the Chinese online retail platform AliExpress because the retailer is not doing enough to address the sale of illegal and dangerous products.

1% of revenue

This is the heaviest fine to date imposed under the European Digital Services Act (DSA) to protect consumers from harmful products and deceptive marketing practices. In May of this year, Temu was fined 200 million euros for similar reasons, and in December, X (formerly Twitter) was fined 120 million euros.

Nevertheless, the 550 million euro fine represents less than 1% of the 122 billion euro in revenue that its parent company, Alibaba , generated last year. The maximum fine AliExpress could have faced would have been 6% of its global annual revenue.

Checks are easy to circumvent

According to the European Commission, AliExpress is not taking sufficient measures against the sale of illegal, unsafe, or counterfeit products. The company does not employ enough staff to assess the products. Many illegal products were promoted through AliExpress’s recommendation systems, and the company’s internal risk assessments failed.

Counterfeit goods, unsafe toys, and hazardous cosmetics often remained online for weeks, even after being flagged. Sellers of illegal products were able to remain active on the platform, even after being penalized. Sellers could easily circumvent the controls.

AliExpress calls the fine “disproportionate” and is considering its options. With 193 million users, the Chinese platform is the largest online retailer in the EU.