US Grants ByteDance New Seven-Day Extension of TikTok Sale Order

Washington: The Donald Trump administration on Wednesday granted ByteDance a new seven-day extension of an order directing the Chinese company to sell its TikTok short video-sharing app, according to a court filing.

The administration previously had granted ByteDance a 15-day extension of the order issued in August, which was set to expire Friday. President Donald Trump on August 14, 2020, had directed ByteDance to divest the app within 90 days.

The new deadline is December 4, 2020, TikTok said in the filing. Under pressure from the US government, ByteDance has been in talks for months to finalise a deal with Walmart Inc. and Oracle Corp. to shift TikTok's US assets into a new entity.

TikTok declined to comment beyond the filing.

ByteDance has made a new proposal aimed at addressing the US government's concerns, said a person briefed on the matter who declined to detail that proposal.

A US Treasury representative said the extension was granted to review a recently received "revised submission".

ByteDance made the proposal after disclosing on November 10, 2020, that it had submitted four prior proposals including one in November that sought to address US concerns by "creating a new entity, wholly owned by Oracle, Walmart and existing US investors in ByteDance, that would be responsible for handling TikTok’s US user data and content moderation."

Separate restrictions on TikTok from the US Commerce Department have been blocked by federal courts, including transaction curbs that TikTok said could effectively ban the app's use in the US.

A Commerce Department ban on Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google offering TikTok for download for new US users that had been set to take effect on September 27, 2020, has also been blocked.

(Reuters)

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