Chinese online retailer Temu has been fined €200 million by the European Commission for failing to properly assess the risk of illegal and dangerous products being sold to EU consumers through its platform.

The fine, imposed under the Digital Services Act (DSA), follows a Commission investigation into whether Temu had adequate systems in place to identify and reduce risks linked to unsafe goods, including faulty chargers, baby toys and jewellery.

According to the Commission, Temu “failed to thoroughly identify, analyse and assess the systemic risks of illegal products offered on its platform and the resulting harm to consumers in the EU”.

The EU executive said Temu’s 2024 risk assessment did not meet the standards required under the DSA, as it relied on general information about risks in the wider e-commerce sector rather than specific data relating to Temu’s own service, including public reports and product testing.

As part of the investigation, the Commission carried out a mystery shopping exercise to assess how likely EU consumers were to encounter illegal or unsafe products on the platform.

The findings showed that a high percentage of selected chargers failed basic safety tests. A senior Commission official said that “in some cases the chargers overheated and caught fire”.

Checks on baby toys, including rattles and small toys for infants, also found “choking hazards, detachable parts and dangerous chemicals”, while jewellery and other accessories raised concerns over incorrect labelling, non-compliance with EU standards and the possible presence of dangerous materials.

However, the Commission said the case was not limited to individual listings, but concerned Temu’s wider systems for detecting and removing illegal or dangerous products before they reached European consumers.

“This case does not concern 100 or 200 illegal products. It concerns whether the platform has mechanisms in place to detect and prevent the emergence of illegal products,” a European official said.

The Commission also found that Temu had not properly assessed how the design of its service, including recommendation systems and product promotion programmes involving affiliated influencers, could increase the spread of illegal products.

Under the DSA, platforms designated as Very Large Online Platforms are required to assess systemic risks linked to their services and adopt appropriate measures to manage them.

The Commission said the €200 million fine relates to Temu’s 2024 fiscal year and the first assessment concerning the platform. Officials said the amount was calculated on the basis of the nature of the infringement, its seriousness for affected EU users and its duration.

A senior official said the failure to carry out appropriate risk assessments was “a particularly serious breach”, as risk assessment is “the cornerstone” of the obligations imposed on very large platforms under the DSA.

Temu now has until August 28, 2026 to submit an action plan to the Commission, setting out how it will address the breach of its risk assessment obligations. The company will be expected to present a “state-of-the-art risk assessment”, based on scientific evidence and effective checks on products and sellers.

“We do not want platforms to treat this process as a simple exercise,” a Commission official said, adding that Temu’s compliance would be closely examined in the next stages of the investigation.

The European board for digital services will have one month from receiving the draft action plan to issue its opinion. The Commission will then have a further month to take its final decision and set a reasonable period for implementation.

The DSA allows the Commission to impose fines of up to 6 per cent of a company’s global annual turnover. Officials said the current fine was lower than that ceiling, noting that 6 per cent is a limit, not a target.

“We do not start from an ideal fine percentage and then do the calculations. The percentage is just the final check to ensure that 6 per cent is not exceeded,” Commission officials said.

Temu disagreed with the decision, saying the fine was disproportionate and that the case related to its first DSA assessment in 2024. The company said it had since taken steps to strengthen risk assessment, platform governance and user protection.

The Commission said the case has not been fully closed, as other parts of the investigation into Temu are still ongoing, including those concerning the distribution of illegal products, recommendation systems and so-called addictive design practices.

Further sanctions could therefore follow if new breaches are identified or if the company fails to comply with EU requirements.