EU imposes $630m fine on AliExpress over ‘illegal products’
BRUSSELS: The EU on Monday slapped a 550-million-euro ($630 million) fine on online retailer AliExpress for allowing the sale of illegal products, including unsafe toys and cosmetics. The European Union said AliExpress also did not do enough to stop the sale...
BRUSSELS: The European Union has fined online retailer AliExpress 550 million euros, or about $630 million, after finding that the platform allowed illegal products to be sold on its marketplace, according to a monitored public feed from Dawn World.
The penalty is linked to the sale of items including unsafe toys and cosmetics, as well as the company’s failure to do enough to curb counterfeit goods, the EU said on Monday. Regulators also found that when AliExpress identified illegal products, many of them remained available online for weeks.
The European Commission said the investigation, which began in March 2024, showed that some products sold through the platform did not meet the bloc’s environmental and safety standards. EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen said in a statement that risks had to be identified and addressed systematically so consumers could shop safely online, adding that AliExpress was being held to that standard and required to take action.
The fine is the largest ever imposed under the EU’s Digital Services Act, the bloc’s main law for policing large online platforms. The law, which came into force in 2022, requires major digital services to assess the risks they create and take steps to reduce them.
AliExpress criticised the penalty as “disproportionate” and said the EU decision ignored its risk-management framework and recent improvements. The company said it would challenge the fine.
The EU said the size of the penalty reflected the nature of the violations, their impact on users in Europe and how long the problems continued. AliExpress is described by the EU as the largest Chinese e-commerce platform in the bloc, with 193 million users. The feed also noted that the European Union is AliExpress’ biggest market.
The case adds to a series of recent EU actions against major online platforms under the DSA. Elon Musk’s X received a 120-million-euro fine in December last year, while Temu was fined 200 million euros in May, according to the same feed.
This report is based on a monitored public feed and is attributed to Dawn World.
Source: Dawn World - https://www.dawn.com/news/2017112/eu-imposes-630m-fine-on-aliexpress-over-illegal-products
