AliExpress fined record €550m by EU for failing to stop sale of illegal and fake goods

Chinese retail platform handed penalty over listings for items such as counterfeit products and unsafe toys The Chinese online retail platform AliExpress has been fined a record €550m (£470m) by the EU over its failure to stop illegal goods including harmful clothing, cosmetics and kitchen gadgets being sold through its site. The European Commission fine is the biggest imposed by the bloc under Digital Services Act (DSA) legislation to protect consumers from illegal goods and deceptive or addictive marketing techniques. Henna Virkkunen, the commission’s executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy, 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 under the Digital Services Act. “Scale is not an excuse; risks must be identified and addressed systematically to ensure consumers can safely shop online. Today, we are holding AliExpress to this standard and request it to take action.” While the fine was much larger than those previously issued under the DSA to Temu (€200m) and