BRUSSELS – Alibaba’s AliExpress was hit with a record €550 million (S$812 million) fine from the European Union on July 20 for failing to tackle sales of illegal, unsafe and counterfeit products on its platform.
The fine was the third issued by the European Commission under the EU’s landmark Digital Services Act (DSA), which requires very large online platforms to do more to counter illegal and harmful content.
The commission charged AliExpress in June 2025 with failing to comply with a DSA requirement to assess and mitigate the risks of dissemination of illegal products.
It set an Oct 20 deadline for AliExpress to propose remedial measures, and the company could face further penalties if the regulator decides in December that they do not comply with the DSA.
“This is very dangerous for consumers, unfair for companies which are complying with all our rules,” EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen told reporters. She pointed to AliExpress’s 193 million users in Europe in 2025 versus Shein’s 156 million and Temu’s 130 million. Temu has also been fined under the DSA, and Shein is facing an ongoing investigation.
“One in five Europeans say they shop once a month from Shein, Temu and AliExpress,” Virkkunen said.
AliExpress criticised the EU fine, saying it was excessive.
“We disagree with today’s decision and the disproportionate fine, which does not adequately reflect our established framework and the significant, proactive enhancements we have made,” AliExpress said in an e-mail.
“We are carefully reviewing the decision and considering all available options.”
AliExpress penalty higher than fines for Musk’s X and Temu
The commission said that AliExpress had not properly evaluated whether it had enough people to review the risks and had overestimated the effectiveness of its system in detecting and removing illegal products.
The regulator criticised the company’s recommender and advertising systems for exacerbating the spread of illegal products and its reliance on one quantitative indicator to measure its moderation system to prevent the risk of illegal products appearing or reappearing in similar forms.
It said the failure of AliExpress to detect illegal products meant that illegal products ranging from counterfeit products to unsafe toys and dangerous cosmetics remained online for many weeks.
The commission also took issue with the company’s ineffective penalty policy, which resulted in penalised businesses continuing to sell illegal products on its platform.
It said that the mandatory AliExpress “brand authorisation” system – intended to prevent counterfeit sales – was ineffective and understaffed and was easily circumvented by traders selling fake products.
The regulator said the novelty of the DSA was a mitigating factor in calculating the fine, which could have been higher. The penalty is significantly higher than the €120 million handed out to Elon Musk’s social media platform X in December 2025 and the €200 million Temu was fined in May, both for DSA violations.
AliExpress dodged a fine, which could be as much as 6 per cent of its global annual turnover, in June 2025 after agreeing to measures to tackle the dissemination of potentially illegal and pornographic materials on its platform. REUTERS
