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Finbarr Bermingham

The European Commission has opened an investigation into Chinese online retailer Shein over, among other things, the alleged sale of “child sexual abuse material” – a move that could see the firm banned from the EU market as a last resort.
The probe, launched on Tuesday under the EU’s Digital Services Act (DSA), will look into the systems the Singapore-based company has in place to limit the sale of illegal products.
As a next step, the commission will ask Shein for further information and request that it complies with its recommendations.
If Shein fails to do so, it could take interim enforcement measures, although it is also open to voluntary commitments from the company to remedy matters. There is no legal deadline for the probe.
It comes after French authorities moved to suspend Shein in the country for three months last November – on the eve of its first ever physical store opening in Paris – after prosecutors said they were investigating the company over childlike sex dolls found on its website.
In December, a French court ruled against the suspension, categorising it as “disproportionate”, since the offending products had been removed from the platform.
However, a French investigation into similar allegations against a range of Chinese retailers is still running in tandem with the EU’s probe.
While commission sources acknowledged that Shein had quickly removed the sex dolls at France’s request, they believe there are broader, underlying concerns about how the firm screens the products it sells to ensure they comply with EU law.
Brussels believes that Shein has “underestimated the risks” associated with selling products within the European Union. Alongside the sex dolls, official sources said toys, clothing, electronic products and jewellery were among the products that might not meet the required standards.
The investigation will also look at “risks linked to the addictive design” of Shein’s service, including whether the rewards system impacts users’ well-being, along with the transparency of the “recommender systems” used to suggest content and products to users.
A Shein spokesman said it took its “obligations under the DSA seriously” and that it would cooperate with the EU on its probe.
“Over the last few months, we have continued to invest significantly in measures to strengthen our compliance with the DSA. These include comprehensive systemic-risk assessments and mitigation frameworks, enhanced protections for younger users, and ongoing work to design our services in ways that promote a safe and trusted user experience,” he said.


It is the latest in a series of broadsides the EU has taken against Shein and other Chinese-owned companies under its sweeping digital laws.
In July, the bloc will start collecting a €3 fee for each small parcel valued below €150 (US$176) sent directly from a non-EU country to customers in the bloc, in a move aimed at Chinese e-commerce platforms such as Shein, Temu and AliExpress.
Temu is also being investigated for alleged “addictive design” under the DSA, while a probe into AliExpress’ compliance and verification systems was opened in 2024 and resulted in binding commitments being accepted last year. The latter is owned by Alibaba, which also owns the South China Morning Post.
French postal services have complained of being “overwhelmed” with parcels from China. China sent out 91 per cent of the roughly 4.6 billion small parcels that entered the EU in 2024, according to the commission.
Earlier this month, meanwhile, it found that Chinese-owned social network TikTok’s design was “addictive” and violated the DSA.
The platform, owned by Chinese firm ByteDance, could be fined 6 per cent of its global revenue if the preliminary findings are not addressed. TikTok has also been banned from all EU institutional work devices.
This month the commission has also started a foreign subsidies probe into wind turbine maker Goldwind, while it moved in January to recommend the removal of Huawei and ZTE from EU-wide telecoms networks within the next three years.
“In the EU, illegal products are prohibited – whether they are on a store shelf or on an online marketplace. The Digital Services Act keeps shoppers safe, protects their well-being and empowers them with information about the algorithms they are interacting with,” EU tech commissioner Henna Virkkunen said.
The sweeping DSA has not been rolled out without controversy. The US government has pushed back fiercely against its use against American companies including Meta and X, formerly Twitter, claiming it was a form of “censorship”.
Senior Trump administration officials have publicly threatened higher tariffs if the EU does not exclude US tech giants from its scope.
Chinese businesses and authorities, too, have been critical of the EU’s digital laws. After this month’s ruling against TikTok, the China Chamber of Commerce to the EU said it “firmly opposes discriminatory legislation and practices targeting specific countries or enterprises”.
Commission sources estimate that one-third of the probes opened under the DSA have targeted American firms with another third focusing on Asian ones, while just under a third have looked at European businesses.


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Investigation will also look at the systems the online retailer uses to ensure illegal products are not being sold in Europe


Investigation will also look at the systems the online retailer uses to ensure illegal products are not being sold in Europe.


Chinese e-commerce giant Shein could face EU ban over ‘childlike sex dolls’

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Investigation will also look at the systems the online retailer uses to ensure illegal products are not being sold in Europe

Investigation will also look at the systems the online retailer uses to ensure illegal products are not being sold in Europe