EU hits Chinese retailer Temu with €200m fine over illegal products

THE EU HAS fined China-based online retailer Temu with a €200 million fine for allowing illegal products to be sold on its site, including dangerous baby toys and defective chargers.

The EU said in a statement today that the company failed to identify, analyse and assess the systemic risks of “illegal products being offered on its platform and the resulting harm to consumers”.

EU regulators said that European consumers are “very likely to encounter illegal items” on Temu.

Temu is a very popular site in the EU, as it gained 130 million users after joining the bloc’s market in 2023.

The Dublin offices of the multinational company were raided by EU regulators who were acting on concerns of distortions from foreign subsidies.

Ireland’s European commissioner Michael McGrath, who is in charge of consumer protection in Europe, 

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But it has come under fierce scrutiny since October 2024, when the EU opened its investigation, which preliminarily found in July last year that Temu had breached landmark rules over the risks of illegal products.

“Temu is a very big player in the European market,” EU tech commissioner Henna Virkkunen told reporters, adding that its size meant that a “very big part” of EU consumers got their hands on such illegal products.

Thursday’s fine is only the second imposed under the EU’s powerful Digital Services Act (DSA) on content, after Elon Musk’s X platform received a €120 million fine in December.

Under the DSA, the world’s most popular digital platforms, including social media apps and online retailers, must conduct a risk assessment to understand what dangers they pose and how to tackle the risks.

The EU slammed Temu for its 2024 risk assessment that it said “falls short of the standards”, citing the discovery of baby toys, such as rattles, containing chemicals that exceeded legal safety limits, and chargers that failed basic safety tests. It also pointed to jewellery.

Today’s fine is only the second imposed under the EU’s powerful Digital Services Act (DSA) on content, after Elon Musk’s X platform received a €120 million fine in December.

Under the DSA, the world’s most popular digital platforms, including social media apps and online retailers, must conduct a risk assessment to understand what dangers they pose and how to tackle the risks.

The EU slammed Temu for its 2024 risk assessment that it said “falls short of the standards”, citing the discovery of baby toys, such as rattles, containing chemicals that exceeded legal safety limits, and chargers that failed basic safety tests. It also pointed to jewellery.