WASHINGTON - Chinese-based ByteDance and its short-video app TikTok on Dec 9 asked an appeals court to temporarily block a law that would require that parent company ByteDance to divest TikTok by Jan 19 or face a ban, pending a review by the US Supreme Court.

The companies filed the emergency motion with the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, warning that without the order the law will take effect and will “shut down TikTok–one of the nation’s most popular speech platforms–for its more than 170 million domestic monthly users on the eve of a presidential inauguration.”

On Dec 6, a three-judge panel of the appeals court upheld the law requiring ByteDance to divest TikTok in the United States by early 2025 or face a ban in just six weeks.

Lawyers for the companies said the prospect the Supreme Court will take the case “and reverse is sufficiently high to warrant the temporary pause needed to create time for further deliberation.”

The companies also noted US President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to prevent a ban, arguing the delay “will give the incoming administration time to determine its position – which could moot both the impending harms and the need for Supreme Court review.”

The Justice Department did not immediately comment.

The decision – unless the Supreme Court reverses it – puts TikTok’s fate in the hands of President Joe Biden on whether to grant a 90-day extension of the Jan 19 deadline to force a sale and then of Trump, who t...