The European Commission has imposed a record €550 million fine on AliExpress, the Chinese online retail platform owned by Alibaba, for repeatedly failing to prevent the sale of illegal, counterfeit and dangerous products to European consumers. The penalty, announced on Monday, is the largest ever issued under the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA), the 2022 legislation that obliges major online platforms to identify and mitigate systemic risks, including the circulation of harmful goods.

Investigators found deep and persistent failures in AliExpress's compliance systems. Staff responsible for reviewing potentially illegal listings were given as little as ten to twenty seconds to assess whether a product met EU standards — far too little time for meaningful evaluation. The platform's recommendation and advertising systems actively promoted prohibited items to users, with nearly 15 million banned products reportedly surfaced to EU shoppers. Crucially, even products that AliExpress's own systems flagged as illegal frequently reappeared on the site, sometimes remaining available for more than a month after being identified. Sellers were also found to circumvent controls with relative ease — for example, by miscategorising counterfeit branded clothing as unbranded goods. "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," said Henna Virkkunen, the Commission's executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy. "Scale is not an excuse."

The fine is the third issued under the DSA, following penalties of €120 million against X — the social media platform owned by Elon Musk — and €200 million against Temu, the low-cost shopping platform, in May. With 193 million users in the EU, AliExpress is the bloc's largest Chinese online retailer, ahead of Shein (156 million) and Temu (130 million). Although €550 million represents a record under the DSA, it amounts to less than 1% of Alibaba's annual revenue of around €122 billion, well below the 6% maximum the Commission could legally impose. AliExpress has until 20 October to submit a remediation plan; failure to comply could trigger further penalties.

AliExpress rejected the decision, calling the fine "disproportionate" and saying it failed to reflect "significant, proactive enhancements" the company had already made to its risk management framework. The company said it would appeal. The Commission's spokesperson pushed back firmly, describing the sanction as "proportionate, adequate" and commensurate with the seriousness and duration of the violations, which spanned 2023 to mid-2025. Some European lawmakers went further: French MEP Stéphanie Yon-Courtin argued that fines alone do not immediately protect consumers and called for the suspension of non-compliant platforms altogether, while German MEP Andreas Schwab of the CDU welcomed the decision as "a clear victory for consumer protection and fair competition in Europe."

The ruling underscores a broader regulatory push by Brussels to impose accountability on large digital marketplaces, particularly those selling cheap goods from Asian manufacturers. A separate Commission investigation into Google's conduct under the DSA is expected to produce findings soon, signalling that enforcement is accelerating across the platform economy.