The European Commission has fined AliExpress €550 million for breaching its Digital Services Act (DSA) obligations to diligently assess and mitigate risks relating to the sale of illegal, unsafe or counterfeit products on its platform.

This follows the Commission fining Temu £200 million earlier this year for similar breaches.

Failure to assess risks properly

The Commission found that AliExpress fell short of its duty to diligently assess risk in several respects:

• It failed to properly evaluate whether it had enough staff to review potentially illegal products, overestimating its detection system's effectiveness and underestimating its moderators' workload.
• It also inadequately assessed how its recommender and advertising systems worsened the spread of illegal products, with many such products recommended or advertised before removal.
• Finally, AliExpress failed to properly measure whether its moderation system prevented illegal products from appearing or reappearing in similar forms, allowing high volumes to continue circulating.

Failure to mitigate identified risks

The Commission also found that AliExpress failed to take effective mitigating measures. These included poorly enforcing its penalty policy for traders selling illegal products, allowing such stores to remain active.  AliExpress' product compliance checks could also be easily circumvented through mis-categorisation, as insufficient staff and inadequate controls let malicious traders exploit more flexible category requirements. 

The fine and next steps

The fine reflects the nature, gravity and duration of the infringements, which ran at least until June 2025, when the Commission issued its preliminary findings. Failing to conduct proper risk assessments and mitigate systemic risks is considered a particularly serious DSA infringement, though, in setting the fine, the Commission gave credit for the DSA's novelty.

AliExpress must now submit an action plan by 20 October 2026 setting out remedial measures. The European Board for Digital Services then has one month to give its opinion, after which the Commission has a further month to adopt its final decision and set an implementation period. Non-compliance could trigger periodic penalty payments. The Commission says it is engaging with AliExpress to ensure compliance. 

AliExpress has reportedly said it will appeal, calling the fine disproportionate and arguing it fails to reflect the improvements and voluntary commitments already made.

Why does this matter?

The decision signals how strictly the Commission intends to enforce the DSA against very large online platforms. 

Platforms must be able to demonstrate, with robust evidence and meaningful metrics, that they have properly assessed systemic risks and implemented effective mitigation measures. The Commission's scrutiny of staffing levels, detection system effectiveness, trader enforcement, counterfeit controls, and recommender and advertising systems illustrates the breadth of oversight such platforms can expect.