EC fines Temu €200 million for selling unsafe goods
The European Commission (EC) has fined the Chinese marketplace Temu €200 million, stating that toxic children's toys and charging devices that have not passed safety checks are being sold on the platform.
The press service of the European executive body reported this.
"The European Commission has imposed a fine on Temu in the amount of €200 million. <...> A very large share of the selected charging devices failed basic safety checks, and a high percentage of children's toys posed medium- and high-level threats due to exceeding permissible concentrations of chemicals," the statement said.
The EC claims that the toys sold on the platform not only contained chemicals in dangerous quantities but also had too many removable parts that children could choke on. It is noted that a control purchase was carried out for the investigation. The owners of the platform were also accused of its design and algorithms contributing to the promotion of "dangerous goods."
The EC gave the marketplace until August 28 to provide a plan to correct the violations. After that, the EC will issue a final decision on the payment of the fine within two months.
Temu was created by the Shanghai company PDD Holdings in 2022. Temu initially began operating in the United States, and in the spring of 2023 it entered the European markets. Already in 2023, the Temu app became the most downloaded in app catalogs in Germany, Italy, France, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands. The platform has more than 90 million monthly users in the EU.
