Commission Imposes €550 Million DSA Fine on AliExpress
The European Commission has imposed a €550 million fine on AliExpress for breaches of the Digital Services Act (DSA) concerning the assessment and mitigation of systemic risks linked to illegal, unsafe, and counterfeit products. The decision follows the Commission’s investigation into the platform’s compliance as a Very Large Online Platform under the DSA.
According to the Commission, AliExpress did not adequately assess whether its content moderation resources were sufficient to address the volume of potentially illegal listings. Its risk assessments reportedly overstated the effectiveness of detection and removal systems and did not properly account for the imbalance between human moderators and their workload. The platform also failed to sufficiently assess the role of its recommender and advertising systems in promoting illegal products to users.
The Commission further found that AliExpress lacked meaningful quantitative measures to assess the effectiveness of its moderation controls. Commission testing reportedly showed that illegal listings continued to circulate at significant scale, including counterfeit goods, unsafe toys, and dangerous cosmetics. In some cases, products remained available for several weeks after detection.
AliExpress also allegedly failed to apply its trader penalty policy consistently and to prevent sellers of illegal products from continuing to operate. Its product categorization controls could reportedly be bypassed by misclassifying products, allowing traders to benefit from less stringent compliance requirements. The Commission also considered the platform’s brand authorization system ineffective in preventing counterfeit listings.
AliExpress must submit a remedial action plan by 20 October 2026. The European Board for Digital Services will issue an opinion on the plan, after which the Commission will adopt a final implementation decision. Continued non-compliance may result in periodic penalty payments. The case illustrates the Commission’s increasing willingness to use its DSA enforcement powers against platforms that do not adequately address systemic risks arising from illegal goods.
Relevant DSA provisions include Articles 34 and 35 on the assessment and mitigation of systemic risks, and Article 74 on fines and other penalties.
