(Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Monday rejected a Justice Department request that it allow the government to immediately ban Apple Inc <AAPL.O> and Alphabet Inc’s Google <GOOGL.O> from offering Tencent’s <0700.HK> WeChat for download in U.S. app stores.
The three-judge panel for the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals said in a brief order the government had not demonstrated it would “suffer an imminent, irreparable injury during the pendency of this appeal, which is being expedited.”
On Friday, a U.S. judge in San Francisco rejected a Justice Department request to reverse her decision preventing the WeChat ban.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Sam Holmes)
