Covington & Burling, Mayer Brown represent TikTok before US court in petition against ban

TikTok and its Chinese parent company ByteDance have filed a suit in the United States (US) Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia challenging a law signed by the US government that would enforce a ban on the app..The company has challenged the constitutionality of the Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act, 2023, which was sanctioned by US President Joe Biden on April 24.The ban has been initiated on the belief that the Chinese government can access the data of Americans or spy on them through the app. The Act prohibits app stores from offering TikTok and bars internet hosting services from supporting TikTok unless ByteDance divests its shares in the company by January 19, 2025."The “qualified divestiture” demanded by the Act to allow TikTok to continue operating in the United States is simply not possible: not commercially, not technologically, not legally. And certainly not on the 270-day timeline required by the Act. Petitioners have repeatedly explained this to the U.S. government, and sponsors of the Act were aware that divestment is not possible. There is no question: the Act will force a shutdown of TikTok by January 19, 2025, silencing the 170 million Americans who use the platform to communicate in ways that cannot be replicated elsewhere," the plea stated..It is argued that the law is an unprecedented step of 'expressly singling out' TikTok, which violates provisions of the US Constitution, including the First Amendment free speech protections.In this regard, the plea has argued that,"Even if a “qualified divestiture” were feasible, the Act would still be an extraordinary and unconstitutional assertion of power. If upheld, it would allow the government to decide that a company may no longer own and publish the innovative and unique speech platform it created. If Congress can do this, it can circumvent the First Amendment by invoking national security and ordering the publisher of any individual newspaper or website to sell to avoid being shut down. And for TikTok, any such divestiture would disconnect Americans from the rest of the global community on a platform devoted to shared content.".TikTok is represented by Alexander Berengaut, David Zionts, Megan Crowley, John Hall and Anders Linderot of Covington & Burling LLP, as well as Andrew Pincus and Avi Kupfer of Mayer Brown LLP..In 2020, the Indian government's Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) had banned 59 Chinese mobile apps including TikTok "in view of information available they are engaged in activities which is prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order."It was noted that the threats were of an emergent nature and that several complaints were received over data security and privacy risks in the use of these apps by Indian users."On the basis of these and upon receiving of recent credible inputs that such Apps pose threat to sovereignty and integrity of India, the Government of India has decided to disallow the usage of certain Apps, used in both mobile and non-mobile Internet enabled devices," a press release issued by MEITY stated..Unlike the present scenario in USA, Tiktok had issued a statement clarifying that it had no plans of challenging the Indian ban.