EU Hits Temu with €200 Million Fine Over Illegal Products on Its Platform

BBC, PBS, Reuters, the New York Times, and the Financial Times contributed to this report.

Temu is in trouble with Brussels. The European Union has slapped the Chinese-owned shopping app with a €200 million ($232 million) fine after regulators said it failed to keep illegal products off its platform, including dangerous baby toys and faulty chargers.

The European Commission said Temu did not properly identify, assess or deal with the risks posed by those goods, warning that the company’s checks were too weak to protect consumers. The case has been running since October 2024, when the company was first examined under the EU’s rules for very large online platforms.

The investigation included mystery shopping by an independent testing group, which reportedly found chargers that failed basic electrical safety tests and baby toys that either contained banned chemicals or had small parts that could create choking hazards.

Temu pushed back hard. A company spokesperson said the fine was “disproportionate” and argued that the decision was based on the company’s 2024 systems, not its current setup. Temu said it had worked with regulators and has since tightened its risk checks, platform controls and user protections.

Still, the EU is not backing off. Temu has until Aug. 28 to submit an action plan, and the Commission will then decide whether that response is good enough. If not, more penalties could follow.

EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen said the bloc was sending Temu a “very strong message,” adding that risk assessments under the Digital Services Act are not just paperwork.

The fine is only the second one handed out under the DSA. The first went to Elon Musk’s X last December.

Consumer groups in the UK praised the move and said British regulators should be just as tough. Which? called the penalty