AliExpress Hit With Record €550m EU Fine Over Illegal Goods

A record €550m EU penalty has made AliExpress the biggest Digital Services Act enforcement case so far, BBC reported, after regulators linked the marketplace to unsafe toys, counterfeit clothing and other illegal goods reaching European shoppers.

The European Commission's order gives the Alibaba-owned platform a compliance deadline as well as a financial penalty.

AliExpress must pay the fine and present a plan by 20 October setting out how it will address the breaches.

European Commission Sets A 20 October Compliance Deadline

The penalty sits inside the EU's Digital Services Act, the bloc's online-safety regime for large digital platforms.

The case followed a two-year investigation into how AliExpress assessed illegal, unsafe or fake goods and how it dealt with traders selling them.

Investigators found that detection systems did not work properly: many illegal products were not flagged, while some items that were identified stayed online for several weeks.

The Commission also found that trader penalties were not properly enforced and that product-compliance checks could be easily circumvented.

EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen framed the case as a platform-duty failure, not an unavoidable side effect of online shopping, citing counterfeit clothing, unsafe toys and dangerous cosmetics as examples of the products at issue.

AliExpress Appeal Leaves Enforcement Timetable Open

AliExpress called the fine disproportionate and plans to appeal.

The company also argued that it has invested substantial resources in risk assessment, product safety and consumer protection, while rejecting the Commission's view of its risk-management framework.

The appeal does not remove the immediate compliance task recorded in the ruling.

The company must still prepare an action plan by 20 October while contesting the penalty, leaving the next stage focused on both legal review and operational changes to its marketplace controls.

The enforcement action also shows how the DSA is moving from platform obligations into measurable sanctions.

The BBC article notes that AliExpress has 193 million users in Europe, more than Shein or Temu, and that the DSA allows fines of up to 6% of company revenue.

DSA Fines Now Reach Marketplaces And Social Platforms

The €550m sanction remains below the theoretical ceiling against Alibaba's €122bn global turnover last year, but it is larger than other recent penalties in the same enforcement lane.

The BBC article cites a €200m fine against Temu earlier this year over illegal products including dangerous baby toys, and a €120m fine against X last year tied to paid blue-tick badges and user-verification concerns.

For online marketplaces, product-risk systems now fall under a capital-policy enforcement channel: detection rules, trader enforcement and compliance checks can carry direct financial exposure when regulators find that illegal goods remain available at scale.

AliExpress has not yet published the 20 October action plan that will show which marketplace controls it intends to change.