The European Commission on Monday fined e-commerce platform AliExpress €550 million after finding that it failed to properly assess and reduce risks linked to illegal, unsafe and counterfeit products sold through its marketplace.

The European Commission said AliExpress breached obligations under the Digital Services Act (DSA) by failing to carry out adequate risk assessments and by not taking effective measures to prevent the circulation of prohibited goods on its platform.

The commission also ordered AliExpress to introduce measures to address the identified shortcomings and comply with its obligations under the legislation.

The investigation found that AliExpress had failed to realistically assess whether it had enough staff to review potentially illegal products, while overstating the effectiveness of its systems for identifying and removing such items.

According to the commission, the platform did not sufficiently account for the imbalance between the number of human moderators available and the volume of content requiring review.

The commission also found that AliExpress had not properly assessed how its recommendation and advertising systems could contribute to the wider distribution of illegal products.

Testing carried out by commission services showed that numerous illegal products were recommended or advertised to consumers before being removed from the platform.

The investigation further found that AliExpress relied on inadequate quantitative indicators when assessing risks, using only one measure that did not properly determine whether its moderation systems were preventing illegal products from appearing or returning in similar forms.

The commission said its own testing showed that large numbers of illegal products continued to circulate despite AliExpress’ moderation efforts.

The findings also highlighted failures in AliExpress’ efforts to mitigate systemic risks linked to illegal products.

The commission said the platform’s detection systems did not operate effectively, with counterfeit goods, unsafe toys and dangerous cosmetics remaining available for purchase for several weeks even after being identified.

AliExpress was also criticised for failing to properly enforce its penalties against traders selling illegal products.

The commission said the platform’s penalty policy was not adequately implemented, allowing shops that had been penalised for selling illegal items to continue operating.

The investigation found that product compliance checks could easily be bypassed through incorrect categorisation of goods.

AliExpress had allocated insufficient staff to verify whether products were placed in the correct categories, while existing controls failed to identify miscategorised products before publication.

The commission said some traders deliberately placed products in incorrect categories to benefit from less demanding requirements, allowing non-compliant goods to remain available.

The platform also failed to adequately prevent the spread of counterfeit products, according to the commission.

It said counterfeit goods posed risks to consumers while also harming legitimate businesses that invest in design, safety testing and innovation.

The commission said AliExpress’ mandatory brand authorisation system, which was intended to prevent counterfeit sales, proved ineffective and lacked sufficient staffing.

As a result, traders were able to bypass the system and publish products that were later removed after being identified as counterfeit.

The €550 million fine was calculated based on the nature, seriousness and duration of the breaches, with the commission taking into account the number of affected European Union users and the fact that the infringements continued until at least June 2025, when preliminary findings were issued.

The commission said failing to carry out proper risk assessments and effectively reduce systemic risks represented particularly serious breaches of the DSA.

However, it also considered mitigating factors when determining the penalty, including the relatively recent introduction of the Digital Services Act.

Under the decision, AliExpress has until October 20, 2026 to submit an action plan to the commission outlining measures to correct the identified failures.

The European Board for Digital Services will have one month from receiving the plan to provide its opinion, after which the commission will have a further month to adopt a final decision and establish a reasonable period for implementation.

Failure to comply with the decision could result in periodic penalty payments, while the commission said it would continue working with AliExpress to ensure compliance with the DSA.

The commission opened formal proceedings against AliExpress on March 14, 2024, examining possible breaches covering risk assessment and mitigation, content moderation, internal complaint handling procedures, advertising and recommendation system transparency, trader traceability and access to data for researchers.

On June 18, 2025, the commission accepted and made binding a series of commitments offered by AliExpress aimed at addressing most of the concerns that had led to the investigation.

These commitments covered areas including the platform’s notice and action mechanism and transparency requirements relating to advertising and recommendation systems.

On the same day, the commission issued preliminary findings that AliExpress had failed to comply with the DSA specifically in relation to assessing and reducing systemic risks linked to the spread of illegal products, two areas not covered by the commitments.

The final decision was based on AliExpress’ 2023 and 2024 risk assessment reports, additional information provided by the platform following formal commission requests issued on November 6, 2023 and January 18, 2024, information from third parties and the commission’s own investigative work.