Online platforms and consumer protection: the Paris Court of Justice refuses to block Shein but imposes stricter controls on access to sexual content

(Paris Court of Justice, 19 December 2025, expedited proceedings)

In a ruling handed down on 19 December 2025, the Paris Court of Justice ruled on an unprecedented action brought by the French State against Infinite Styles Services Co. Ltd. (ISSL), the operator of the Shein online shopping platform accessible from France.
Background to the dispute
At the end of October 2025, coinciding with its arrival in several national stores, several clearly illegal products (including child pornography sex dolls, Category A weapons, and medicines prohibited from online sale) were offered for sale by third-party sellers on the marketplace ‘fr.shein.com’, known to the general public as ‘Shein’.
The French State, relying on Article 6-3 of the LCEN and the European Digital Services Act (DSA), summoned ISSL and the main internet service providers before the Paris Court of Justice, ruling under the accelerated procedure on the merits, to request, as a primary measure, the total blocking of the platform in France for a period of three months, subject to a penalty of €10,000.
The French State also requested that, at the end of this period, the lifting of this blocking measure should only be possible if ISSL could prove that it had implemented all measures necessary to prevent or stop the damage caused by the online content it offers, including effective age filtering measures, through checks and verifications, and not simply through user declarations, and product categorisation measures, so as to prevent minors from accessing pornographic products.
The parties were heard on 5 December 2025.
During the hearing, the French State made a subsidiary request, not included in its conclusions, namely that the measure suspending sales by third-party sellers and all sales of ‘Shein’ products not related to the clothing sector remain in effect at the end of the three-month period until ISSL has justified the aforementioned control and verification measures.

Reminder of the law
Article 6-3 of the Law on Confidence in the Digital Economy (LCEN), as amended by the SREN Law of 21 May 2024 aimed at securing and regulating the digital space, confers on the president of the judicial court, ruling in accordance with the accelerated procedure on the merits, the power to order any measures necessary to prevent or stop damage caused by the content of an online public communication service.

Technical intermediaries benefit from a reduced liability regime if they do not take an active role and if they act promptly after receiving sufficiently precise notification of illegal content, in accordance with the LCEN law and European case law. The DSA reaffirms the absence of a general obligation to monitor, accompanied by an obligation to act promptly after becoming aware of the situation (CJEU 22 June 2021, joined cases C-682/18 and C-683/18; DSA).
Very large platforms are subject to a duty of care in detecting and removing illegal content (Articles 16 and 17 of the DSA), to setting up an internal complaint management system (Article 20), publishing an annual transparency report on moderation measures (Article 42) and conducting an annual analysis of the systemic risks associated with the dissemination of illegal or dangerous content (Article 34). They face heavy administrative penalties for non-compliance, which can be as high as 6% of their global turnover (Article 74 of the DSA).
In particular, Article 28 of the DSA requires ‘providers of online platforms accessible to minors [to] put in place appropriate and proportionate measures to ensure a high level of privacy, safety and security for minors on their service’.
Since 13 December 2024, Regulation (EU) 2023/988 on general product safety (GPSR) requires online marketplace providers to put in place internal processes to deal with injunctions and monitoring, take into account alerts from the Safety Gate portal, identify, remove or make inaccessible offers of dangerous products, and inform the authority that notified Safety Gate of the measures taken (Art. 22, §3, §6 and §9). Failure to comply with these measures is punishable by criminal penalties.
What the decision says
The court rejected the objections raised by Shein and confirmed that the State does indeed have an interest and standing to act on the basis of Article 6-3 of the LCEN, since this text does not reserve action to specific authorities and aims to prevent or stop damage caused by online content that undermines public order.
On the merits, the court recognised the objective seriousness of the disputed content and the existence of clear harm, particularly with regard to the protection of minors, justifying the intervention of the judicial judge pursuant to Article 6-3 of the LCEN.
However, the court rejected all requests for blocking, including those directed against internet service providers in their capacity as technical intermediaries.
After pointing out that ‘the court, acting on the basis of Article 6-3 of the LCEN, is not a body responsible for regulating and sanctioning digital players with regard to compliance with the provisions of the DSA’ but ‘has the task of preventing and stopping specific damage directly caused by specific online content’, such a measure would be “manifestly disproportionate and would constitute an unjustified infringement of the right to freedom of enterprise (…) ‘ since ’only certain products on the marketplace have been identified (…) as manifestly illegal and harmful (…) and the identified products have all been removed by ISSL, in addition to which the latter has taken the initiative to suspend its entire marketplace, leaving only clothing items for sale”.

On the other hand, the court upheld the State’s subsidiary request on a specific point that is essential for digital consumer law: ISSL is ordered not to resume the sale of sexual products that may be pornographic in nature without implementing effective age verification measures, other than a simple declaration of majority. This injunction is accompanied by a provisional penalty of €10,000 per infringement, applicable for a maximum period of 12 months.
The judge considers that a simple declarative ‘click’ is insufficient in view of the requirements for the protection of minors, that the exposure of minors to pornographic content constitutes serious and certain harm, and that Article 28 of the DSA imposes a high level of protection on platforms accessible to minors.
For the court, ‘the best interests of the child may justify infringing on other rights such as freedom of expression and communication, or freedom of enterprise’.
Key takeaways from the decision
This decision, which is particularly well-reasoned, is based on law. The judge hearing the case remains within his power to prevent and stop harm. Since ISSL had withdrawn the illegal products from sale and suspended its entire marketplace for all products other than clothing, it was difficult for the judge to rule otherwise.
It illustrates a pragmatic balance between consumer protection (particularly of minors) and the preservation of the freedom of e-commerce platforms to operate.
Finally, it confirms that, even in the absence of a global block, platforms are required to implement robust technical age verification mechanisms, under the supervision of the judicial authorities, independently of the administrative procedures provided for by the DSA.
For legal professionals, there is another interesting point to note. ISSL argued that the requests presented at the hearing by the French State, which were not included in its final submissions, were inadmissible under Article 446-2-1 of the Code of Civil Procedure (resulting from Decree No. 2025-619 of 8 July 2025 and which came into force on 1 September 2025), as the Court was only required to rule ‘on the latest submissions filed’.
Recalling that the accelerated proceedings on the merits are ‘oral proceedings’, the Court rejected the argument on the grounds that ‘this provision, which is intended to clarify the formal rules applicable to submissions in oral proceedings, does not prohibit the parties from changing their claims at the hearing by presenting new or amended requests orally, subject to compliance with the adversarial principle’, and specified that ‘a contrary interpretation would amount to completely depriving the proceedings of their oral nature, a change that does not result from the decree of 8 July 2025’.
Decision: Paris Court of First Instance, 19 December 2025, French State v. Infinite Styles Services Co. Ltd.

Céline Cuvelier
Avocat BCUBE