The sanctions have been issued by the French Directorate-General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Prevention. Of the total sum, 16.7 million euros relate to problems with order confirmations, while the remaining 5.8 million euros concern the handling of returns as well as information about the environmental properties of the products.
Shein rejects the decision and announces that it will appeal. The company's spokesperson says in a statement:
Technical issues, without impact on consumers and already rectified where necessary, have been used as the basis for an exceptional penalty. We therefore intend to strongly contest both sanctions in their entirety.
This is not the first time the e-commerce retailer has been subject to penalties in the French market. In July, the company was fined 40 million euros for misleading discounts. French authorities also attempted to suspend the company's marketplace, an attempt that was however dismissed by a Paris Court of Appeal in March. The platform has also been subject to extra scrutiny since November, after unauthorized products were identified on the site.
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Serge Papin, France's Minister for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises, commented on the repeated violations in a post on platform X:
We have decided not to leave these platforms alone, and we will continue to take action until they completely change their methods – or leave our market.
The French decision comes at a time when Shein is facing regulatory demands on several fronts in Europe. As Ehandel.se previously reported the company is currently being investigated by the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC). This review, which began on April 30, aims to determine whether the company's transfers of customer data from the EU to China violate the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).