A unit of China’s online retailer JD.com Inc. agreed to pay $500,000 to settle US Securities and Exchange Commission claims it made a series of “sham transactions” to meet revenue targets for several quarters starting in October 2022. Dada Nexus Ltd., an on-demand retail and delivery platform headquartered in Shanghai, allegedly faked certain online advertising and marketing transactions from October 2022 through September 2023 that overstated net revenue and operation and support costs by more than $160 million, the SEC said in a cease-and-desist order Friday.

Representatives of the firm, which agreed to pay the penalty without admitting to the SEC’s claims, did not immediately respond to an after-hours request for comment. Dada in January 2024 disclosed it was investigating “suspicious practices” that could cast doubt on revenues from the company’s online advertising and marketing services for the first three quarters of 2023. The company at the time estimated that millions in revenue could have been overstated. JD.com’s shares cratered 46% on the news.

The deals involved almost identical payments and disbursements of funds that lacked substance or weren’t supported by business records, the SEC said Friday. The transactions helped Dada overstate net revenue by 8% and 9% in the second and third quarters of fiscal year 2023, the SEC said. JD.com took Dada Nexus private in June 2025, when it became a wholly owned subsidiary of the company. The SEC cited the company’s cooperation with agency investigators and its steps to fix internal problems in the agency’s assessment of how to arrive at the settlement.