At the end of its investigation, the European Commission announced that it had spotted “a large number of counterfeits”. The Chinese online sales platform must comply with European regulations within three months, under penalty of periodic fines.
This is one of the highest fines imposed by Brussels. On Monday July 20, the European Union imposed a fine of 550 million euros on the Chinese online commerce platform AliExpress, a subsidiary of the giant Alibaba, for allowing the sale to European consumers of illegal products, including dangerous toys and counterfeit clothing.
“This new decision of a record amount reaffirms the desire of the European Union to regulate the activity of very large digital platforms”welcomed Roland Lescure, Minister of the Economy, Serge Papin, Minister of Commerce, and Anne Le Hénanff, Minister Delegate in charge of AI and Digital Technology, in a press release.
In response, the company denounced a fine “disproportionate”without specifying whether she would appeal. The sanction requires the site to submit to the European Commission, within three months, measures aimed at getting back into compliance with the famous Digital Services Act (DSA), under penalty of periodic fines.
The company AliExpress was sanctioned, after more than two years of investigations, for failing to fulfill its obligations resulting from the European regulation on digital services, the DSA. This regulation requires it, since its adoption in 2022“to diligently evaluate and mitigate the risks associated with the sale of illegal, dangerous or counterfeit products on its platform”.
“Dangerous toys and cosmetics” on sale
The European Commission considers in particular that the system for detecting products prohibited for sale put in place by AliExpress was not working at all when its investigation began, in March 2024. Result, “we spotted a large number of counterfeits, but also dangerous toys and cosmetics, which remained on sale for a very long time”, explained, Monday, Henna Virkkunen, vice-president of the European Commission, responsible for Digital.
In addition, malicious sellers could very easily circumvent product conformity verification systems, because the dedicated teams were undersized. As part of a parallel investigation, the Commission had previously imposed a fine of 200 million euros on Temu, another Chinese platform very popular in Europe, at the end of May, again for allowing the distribution of illegal products. The company contested this sanction.
Source: Franceinfo
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