ByteDance obtains 15day extension on US order to sell TikTok
The Trump administration granted ByteDance a 15-day extension of an assignment order that ordered the Chinese company to sell its TikTok video-sharing app by Thursday.
TikTok first leaked the extension earlier in a court filing, saying it now has until November 27 to reach a deal. Under pressure from the US government, ByteDance is in talks for a deal with Walmart Inc and Oracle Corp to transfer TikTok’s US assets to a new entity.
The Treasury Department said on Friday that the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States (CFIUS) had granted the 15-day extension to “give the parties and the committee additional time to resolve this matter in a manner consistent with the order”.
ByteDance filed a petition on Tuesday with the U.S. District of Columbia Court of Appeals challenging the Trump administration’s divestiture order.
ByteDance said Tuesday that CFIUS is seeking to “force wholesale divestment of TikTok, a multi-billion dollar company based on technology developed by” ByteDance and based on the government’s review of the acquisition of Musical.ly by Chinese company in 2017.
President Donald Trump, in an order dated August 14, ordered ByteDance to cede the app within 90 days.
The Trump administration maintains that TikTok poses national security concerns, claiming that the personal data of American users could be obtained by the Chinese government. TikTok, which has more than 100 million US users, denies the claims.
Trump said the Walmart-Oracle deal had its “blessing.”
One big issue that has persisted is the ownership structure of the new company, TikTok Global, which is said to own TikTok’s US assets.
In Tuesday’s court file, ByteDance said it submitted a fourth proposal last Friday that envisaged addressing US concerns “by creating a new entity, 100% owned by Oracle, Walmart and existing US investors in ByteDance, who would be responsible for processing the data of US users of TikTok and moderating the content. “
Separate restrictions on the U.S. Department of Commerce’s TikTok have been blocked by federal courts, including transaction restrictions set to take effect Thursday that TikTok says could effectively ban the app’s use in the United States.
A Department of Commerce ban on Apple Inc and Alphabet Inc’s Google offering TikTok for download to new US users that was due to go into effect on September 27 was also blocked.
