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

AliExpress has been fined a record €550 million by the European Union after regulators said the Chinese retail platform failed to stop illegal and fake goods from being sold through its site.

According to the monitored public feed, the penalty was imposed by the European Commission and covers listings that included counterfeit products, unsafe toys, and other items described as harmful, such as clothing, cosmetics and kitchen gadgets. The fine is the largest yet under the EU’s Digital Services Act, or DSA, a law that took effect in 2024 and is intended to help protect consumers from illegal goods and from deceptive or addictive marketing tactics.

The case places one of the world’s biggest online marketplaces under intense scrutiny over how effectively it monitors third-party sellers and removes risky listings. The Commission’s action signals that the EU is prepared to use the DSA’s enforcement powers against platforms it says have not done enough to curb unlawful content and products.

AliExpress, which operates as a Chinese online retail platform, was the subject of the penalty after regulators concluded it had not sufficiently prevented the sale of items that should not have been available to consumers in the first place. The report does not provide details on whether the company has responded to the decision or whether it plans to appeal.

The size of the fine is notable not only because of the amount itself, but also because it sets a new benchmark for penalties under the EU’s relatively new digital rules. The DSA was designed to create stronger obligations for major online services, particularly where consumer safety, marketplace oversight and online manipulation are concerned.

The EU has increasingly focused on the responsibilities of large e-commerce platforms whose business models depend on hosting vast numbers of independent sellers. In this case, the concern was not only that illegal goods appeared on the site, but that the platform allegedly failed to stop them from circulating at scale.

This report is based on a monitored public feed and reflects the information currently available from that summary. Source attribution: The Guardian Business.

Source: The Guardian Business - https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/jul/20/aliexpress-fined-by-eu-sale-of-illegal-fake-goods