French appeals court rejects Shein suspension

Clothes by Chinese company Shein are seen in the BHV (Bazar de l'Hotel de Ville) department store, Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2025 in Paris. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard, File)

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 that sex dolls resembling young girls, prohibited firearms and banned medicines were being sold on Shein’s platform for third-party vendors.

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.

Shein, which was founded in China and is now based in Singapore, sells ultra-cheap fashion clothing on its website and hosts a large number of third-party vendors.

After the sex dolls scandal broke, Shein temporarily suspended its website in France to conduct an audit and correct “flaws”, before reopening progressively earlier this year.

The furore over illegal products is just one of several plaguing Shein, which has been under fire since it established operations in France.

It is widely criticised by both campaign groups and politicians for generating substantial environmental pollution, practising unfair competition, selling goods that fail to comply with basic regulations and imposing appalling working conditions in its Chinese factories.

Shein is the target in France of a proposed law designed to curb ultra-fast fashion.

It has incurred substantial fines, including a 150-million-euro (US$170-million) penalty in 2025 for non-compliance with data protection rules on the use of cookies.