French appeals court rejects Shein suspension

Singapore-based Chinese fast-fashion giant Shein. Picture: Piero Cruciatti / AFP A French appeals court Thursday rejected the government’s demand to temporarily suspend a section of Shein’s website in France after the discovery that it was selling weapons, banned medications and childlike sex dolls. The government had demanded the whole site be suspended, but a lower court ruled in December that the suspension was not justified because the Asian ultra-fast-fashion giant had removed the illicit products from the platform.

It appealed, requesting the section of the website selling third party products called “marketplace” — which had hosted the illegal items for sale — be suspended. But the Paris Court of Appeal ruled against this, saying “the harm that had justified the state’s action no longer existed”. It however upheld the ban imposed by the lower court on Shein reselling lawful adult pornographic products without adding age-verification filters to its site.

The online retailer has acknowledged difficulties in implementing an effective age filter for these products. French authorities last year had demanded a three-month block on Shein’s platform and requested it only be allowed to resume operations once the company had introduced strict measures to prevent the sale of illegal items. The case was triggered by the discovery thatsex dolls resembling young girls, prohibited firearms and banned medicines were being sold on Shein’s platform for third-party vendors.

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The appeals court said there was no justification for suspending the site “based on either current damage or certain future damage” as, it concluded, there was no systemic risk of the illegal goods appearing there. ISSL, the firm that manages the website, “had reacted promptly to remove the disputed products from sale and had put in place measures to monitor its products and the sellers with access to its marketplace”, the court noted. It therefore concluded that blocking the marketplace completely would be “disproportionate” and infringe Shein’s freedom to conduct business.

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