File photo: sipaphoto.com

Luckin Coffee was ordered to stop illegal activities and fined 2 million yuan as administrative penalties by the State Administration for Market Regulation, the top market regulator, on Monday.

Investigations show that the Chinese coffeehouse chain had inflated its revenue, costs, and profit margins of some products from April to September in 2019, with the help of 43 third-party companies.

The company also widely used false marketing data through various channels to deceive and mislead the public from August 2019 to April 2020, violating relevant regulations on anti-unfair competition.

The other 43 companies were fined for providing substantial assistance to Luckin to engage in false propaganda.