<body><p>STORY: Alibaba's AliExpress was hit with a record €550 million ($629 million) fine from the European Union on Monday for failing to tackle sales of illegal, unsafe and counterfeit products on its platform.</p><p>The company said it will appeal the fine as it considers it excessive.</p><p>Thomas Regnier is an EU spokesman.</p><p>"AliExpress has just received a fine of 550 million euros for breaching the Digital Services Act. AliExpress failed to assess and mitigate the risks of illegal products being offered on its marketplace. Just to give you a figure, the company itself reported that almost 15 million illegal products were recommended last year to users in the European Union. We're mostly speaking about unsafe and counterfeit products, such as cosmetics, toys, clothes, or gadgets, to name just a few."</p><p>The EU said AliExpress had not properly evaluated whether it had enough people to review the risks and had overestimated the effectiveness of its system in detecting and removing illegal products.</p><p>AliExpress said in an email that the decision ignores its quote, “sound risk management framework and the significant, proactive enhancements we have made."</p><p>The fine was the third issued under the EU's landmark new law which requires very large online platforms to do more to counter illegal and harmful content.</p><p>The company could face further penalties if the regulator decides in December that it is not complying with the ruling.</p><p>AliExpress’ competitor Temu has also been fined under the new law while Shein is facing an ongoing investigation.</p><p>Temu was hit with a €200 million fine in May while Elon Musk's social media platform X received a €120 million penalty in December last year.</p></body>
