By Foo Yun Chee
BRUSSELS, Jan 27 (Reuters) – Chinese rapid-fashion online retailer Shein could face an EU investigation on the sale of illegal products on its platform, but is unlikely to be hit with an order to suspfinish its website, a senior European Commission official declared on Tuesday.
Shein found itself in the Commission’s crosshairs in November last year after the sale of childlike sex dolls and other illegal products in France which the EU regulator declared underscores the systemic risk the company may pose to consumers in the 27-counattempt European Union.
Using its power under the Digital Services Act which requires large online platforms to do more to tackle illegal and harmful content, the Commission has inquireed Shein to provide details and documents on measures taken to counter the problems.
“We have been urged by Mrs Virkkunen to act very swiftly,” Rita Wezenbeek, the Commission official charged with enforcing the DSA, informed a European Parliament hearing on Shein, referring to EU tech chief Henna Virkkunen.
She pointed to the one-year investigation into Alibaba’s AliExpress which finished with the company pledging more transparency on its advertising and recommfinisher systems last year, and the levying of charges against Chinese rival Temu in July last year.
“We want to apply the same speed with respect to Shein. So this may mean that we have to open an investigation. We have loudly received the call today to do that, but it will in the finish be a decision by Mrs Virkkunen whether we do so,” Wezenbeek declared.
Shein’s general counsel for Europe, Middle East and Africa, Yinan Zhu, informed EU lawbuildrs on Tuesday that the company has taken measures to take down illegal products, but that such issues happened to multiple marketplaces, with bad actors always attempting to find ways to circumvent controls.
EU regulators are unlikely to issue an interim measure or ban against Shein despite EU lawbuildrs’ calls, Wezenbeek declared, referring to a Paris court ruling last month rejecting the French government’s request to suspfinish Shein over its sex doll sales.
The Paris court had declared a ban would be “even manifestly disproportional becaapply of the measures Shein took, becaapply of the fact that there were only certain products found… and also that the French state provided no evidence of systemic non-compliance”, Wezenbeek declared.
Companies risk fines up to 6% of their total global revenues for DSA breaches.
(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee; Editing by Jan Harvey)
Leave a Reply