(Yicai Global) May 20 --Fraud-tainted Luckin Coffee said it plans to appeal a delisting notice the Nasdaq handed the Chinese Starbucks rival just a year after it debuted.

Luckin Coffee plans to seek a Nasdaq panel hearing to plead its case after receiving notice from the exchange, the Xiamen-based company said in a statement yesterday.The request must be made within seven days and hearings are usually carried out within 45 days of that.

Suspended for more than a month, Luckin Coffee's shares [NASDAQ: LK] will recommence trading today. They last changed hands at USD4.39. The company listed in May 2019, pricing the shares at USD17 each.

The Nasdaq cited two reasons behind its decision to remove Luckin, including "public interest concerns" based on the fabricated transactions that the company revealed at the start of last month and a failure to disclose critical information, the firm said.The business publicly admitted on April 2 that its chief operating officer and other employees had faked sales figures by as much as CNY2.2 billion (USD310 million).

Chairman Lu Zhengyao said via WeChat yesterday that he is willing to accept any related investigation and that he has pledged shares of Luckin Coffee to fund its operations instead of a lavish lifestyle. He did not disclose how many shares he pledged.

The Nasdaq cannot comment on a single stock, but all companies on the New York-based exchange need to abide by its rules, it told Yicai Global yesterday.

The less than three-year-old company has not been sued in China yet but the Supreme People's Court is very concerned about the chain, China Business Journal reported yesterday, citing Liu Guixiang, a memberof thetop court’s judicialcommittee. A number of US law firms said they will file class action lawsuits against Luckin.

Editor: Emmi Laine