European Commission ramps up pressure on Shein, Paris hearing set for December 5

The European Commission ramped up pressure on China’s Shein on Wednesday, saying the online platform might pose a “systemic risk” for consumers and demanding more information from the company after illegal items were found for sale on its marketplace.

Fast-fashion retailer Shein has been embroiled in scandal in France since the country’s consumer watchdog found childlike sex dolls and banned weapons for sale on its online marketplace, tainting the launch of its first permanent shop within Paris department store BHV.

“Following the sale of illegal products in France and several public reports, the Commission suspects that Shein’s system may pose a systemic risk for consumers across the entire European Union,” the European Commission said, adding it has made a formal request to Shein for more information under the Digital Services Act, an EU law governing online platforms. A Shein spokesperson said the company had received the request and was working to promptly address it.

The French government is pushing the Commission to open a formal investigation into Shein under the DSA, but it has so far stopped short of doing so. Separately on Wednesday, a Paris court delayed a hearing of the French government’s request to suspend Shein’s website in the country for three months. 

The hearing, meant to take place on Wednesday, was postponed to December 5 after a lawyer for the French state said Shein delayed sending its arguments until the last minute on Tuesday, making it impossible for the hearing to take place. A lawyer for Shein, Julia Bombardier, said: “We were ready to plead today, and we will be on December 5 too.”

Shein removed marketplace products- provided by third-party sellers- from its website in France on November 5 but the website, selling Shein’s own clothing range, is still accessible. The government aims to secure a three-month suspension of Shein’s website as a whole under an extraordinary judicial procedure as it pushes the company to tighten controls over the products it sells.

The government started the process on the day its BHV store opened. The Paris store, and five others set to open in regional department stores, are not expected to be impacted.

“We must bring an end to this online Wild West,” Serge Papin, France’s minister for small and medium-sized enterprises, said on the TF1 television network on Wednesday. “Shein has closed its marketplace but now we want them to give us the proof that what it will bring back to market is in line with our consumer codes.”

AliExpress and Joom could also be the subject of a judicial complaint, Papin added, after childlike sex dolls were also found for sale on those marketplaces. AliExpress banned a Chinese seller of the dolls after Reuters found the items for sale on the platform in the week after Paris prosecutors announced an investigation into it and Shein for disseminating images or representations of minors of a pornographic nature.

In a parliamentary hearing earlier on Wednesday Frédéric Merlin, chairman of BHV owner SGM, sought to distance himself from Shein’s marketplace and condemned the sale of childlike sex dolls, saying he had vetted all the Shein products sold in the BHV store. He called on lawmakers to tighten legislation on online platforms and make them responsible for products sold by third-party sellers.