On July 20, 2026, the European Commission announced that, pursuant to the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), it had imposed a fine of 550 million euros (approximately 4.25 billion yuan) on AliExpress, the cross-border e-commerce platform owned by Alibaba Group, on the grounds that the platform failed to fulfill its duty to assess and prevent the risks associated with the sale of illegal, unsafe, and counterfeit products on its platform. This is the largest fine imposed by the European Commission since the DSA took effect, far exceeding the previous fines of 120 million euros against the social media platform X (December 2025) and 200 million euros against the Chinese e-commerce platform Temu (May 2026).
Case Details
The European Commission determined that AliExpress violated Articles 34 and 35 of the DSA—which pertain to the obligation to assess and prevent systemic risks—in multiple respects. Specifically, AliExpress underestimated the resources required to screen for potentially illegal products, overestimated the effectiveness of its content moderation system, and suffered from a severe shortage of manual moderators—in some cases, moderators had only a few dozen seconds to determine whether a product complied with EU standards. The platform also failed to properly assess how its recommendation algorithms and advertising systems amplified the spread of illegal products.
Tests conducted by the European Commission revealed that a large number of prohibited products continued to be recommended and advertised even after being taken down; counterfeit clothing, unsafe toys, hazardous cosmetics, and other such products remained on the platform for weeks after being identified; sellers could circumvent compliance reviews by miscategorizing their products; the brand authorization review system, due to staffing shortages and its susceptibility to circumvention, failed to effectively prevent counterfeit products from being listed; and penalties against non-compliant sellers were poorly enforced, allowing penalized merchants to continue operating.
The European Commission stated that the fine amount was determined after comprehensively considering the nature, severity, and duration of the violations, as well as their impact on EU consumers, while also taking into account the DSA as a new regulatory framework. Under the DSA, platforms found in violation can be fined up to 6% of their global annual turnover; the 550 million euro fine represents less than 1% of Alibaba’s 122 billion euro revenue for the previous fiscal year.
Pursuant to the penalty decision, AliExpress must submit a corrective action plan to the European Commission by October 20, 2026, detailing how it will rectify the aforementioned violations. The European Board for Digital Services will review the plan and provide feedback, after which the European Commission will make a final decision and set a reasonable deadline for implementation. If AliExpress refuses to comply, the European Commission may impose periodic fines.
Reactions from Various Parties
Henna Virkkunen, Executive Vice President of the European Commission, stated: “The proliferation of counterfeit clothing, unsafe toys, hazardous cosmetics, and other illegal and harmful products is not an inevitable cost of online shopping, but rather the result of AliExpress’s failure to fulfill its obligations under the Digital Services Act. Scale is no excuse; risks must be systematically identified and addressed to ensure consumers can shop online safely. Today, we are demanding that AliExpress meet this standard and take action.”
In a statement, AliExpress said that since the DSA took effect, the company has been and will remain firmly committed to fulfilling its obligations, having invested significant resources in risk assessment and prevention, product safety, and consumer protection; the company disagrees with the decision, arguing that the fine fails to adequately reflect the framework it has established and the significant, proactive improvements it has made.
On July 22, China’s Ministry of Commerce responded by stating that China expresses strong dissatisfaction and serious concern over this matter. It firmly opposes the EU’s use of platform regulation as a pretext to erect digital barriers and adopt discriminatory measures to restrict and suppress the normal operations of Chinese e-commerce companies in Europe. The ministry urged the EU to stop abusing its discretionary power by exploiting ambiguities in legal provisions and stated that it will firmly support Chinese companies in using legal means to defend their rights.
