Temu faces €200M EU penalty for faulty toys and chargers

The European Commission investigation concluded that the Chinese e-commerce platform had insufficient risk assessments after discovering unsafe baby toys and defective chargers being sold on its site.

The European Commission has slapped a fine of €200 million against the Chinese e-commerce giant Temu after investigators found dangerous baby toys and faulty chargers widely available on its platform, News.Az reports, citing Euronews.

The Commission said on Thursday that under the Digital Services Act (DSA), the platform failed to properly identify and address the risks posed by illegal and unsafe products sold to European consumers.

The fine comes after a formal investigation launched in October 2024 into whether Temu was meeting its obligations as a designated Very Large Online Platform under EU law.

The Commission’s investigation involved a mystery shopping exercise, carried out by an independent testing organisation. It found that a high percentage of chargers purchased through Temu failed basic electrical safety tests and a high proportion of baby toys posed medium to high safety risks, containing chemicals above legal limits or featuring small detachable parts that present suffocation hazards.

The Commission also criticised Temu for failing to account for the role its own platform design plays in spreading unsafe products. Recommender algorithms and influencer-led promotional programmes, investigators noted, may actively amplify the reach of illegal listings, a dimension Temu had not properly examined.

"Risk assessments are not box‐ticking exercises - they are the backbone of the DSA,” said Henna Virkkunen, the EU Commission’s executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy. “Temu’s risk assessment underestimates concrete risks, lacks specificity, is not grounded in solid evidence, and is not comprehensive. .

“It leaves regulators, users, and the public in the dark about the true scale of potential harm posed by illegal products sold on Temu. Now it is time for Temu to comply with the law.”

Temu now has until 28 August 2026 to submit an action plan setting out how it intends to remedy its risk-assessment failures, as required under Article 75 of the DSA. The European Board for Digital Services will have one month to review the plan, after which the Commission will have a further month to adopt a final decision and set a timeline for implementation.

Should Temu fail to comply with the non-compliance decision, it could face periodic penalty payments on top of Thursday's fine. The Commission said it would continue to engage with the company to monitor its adherence to the DSA more broadly.

News.Az 

By Ulviyya Salmanli