The European Commission (EC) has fined online retail marketplace AliExpress €550m ($628.06m) over failures to meet Digital Services Act (DSA) risk-assessment duties tied to counterfeit, unsafe and illegal goods.
According to the EC, the Chinese company did not sufficiently assess whether it had enough staff to review potentially illegal listings, and it overstated the effectiveness of its detection and removal systems.
This was due to its failure to account for the gap between moderator numbers and the volume of content needing review.
The EC also said the company did not sufficiently assess how its recommendation and advertising tools contributed to the spread of illegal items.
Trials carried out by the regulator found that such products were frequently promoted to shoppers before being removed.
Investigators said AliExpress relied on a single quantitative measure that did not show how well its systems prevented banned goods from reappearing in modified forms.
European Commission tech sovereignty, security and democracy executive vice-president Henna Virkkunen said: “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.”
Checks by the EC found that large volumes of illegal products were still available despite the company’s moderation measures, and that counterfeit goods, dangerous toys and unsafe cosmetics remained listed for weeks after being reported.
It also said sanctions against sellers in breach were not applied consistently.
In a separate finding, the investigation identified weaknesses in product-category verification that allowed sellers to mislabel goods and avoid tighter compliance checks.
The platform’s brand-authorisation scheme, designed to prevent counterfeit sales, was also found to be understaffed and open to circumvention.
The commission described the shortcomings as a serious DSA breach, with the infringement period lasting until at least June 2025, when preliminary findings were issued.
It said the relative newness of the DSA was taken into account as a mitigating factor when setting the fine.
AliExpress has until 20 October 2026 to submit a remediation plan.
The European Board for Digital Services will then have one month to respond before the EC adopts its final decision. Failure to comply could lead to further periodic fines.
The investigation began in March 2024.
It also examined content moderation, complaint handling, advertising transparency and trader traceability, several of which AliExpress addressed through commitments accepted by the EC in June 2025.
In May, The European Commission imposed a €200m penalty on online marketplace Temu under the DSA, concluding that the retailer did not properly evaluate the risks linked to illegal products sold through its platform.
