Google Sued Over TikTok Ban: Is the Tech Giant Breaking Federal Law?

A Google shareholder and Silicon Valley software engineer, Zhaocheng Anthony Tan, has filed a lawsuit against Alphabet Inc. (Google’s parent company) for handling the TikTok ban. The lawsuit, filed on June 10, 2025, in Delaware’s Chancery Court (Case No. 2025-0649), seeks internal documents from Google to investigate potential corporate wrongdoing.

In January 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a federal law known as the “Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act” (PAFACAA). This law effectively banned TikTok in the U.S. unless its Chinese parent company, ByteDance, sold it to an approved buyer. This law imposed significant penalties of $5,000 per user for companies supporting TikTok post-ban.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision, major U.S. tech companies like Apple and Google initially delisted TikTok from their app stores on January 19, 2025, and infrastructure providers like Oracle and Akamai terminated their services.

However, President Donald Trump, on the first day of his second term (around February 2025), issued an executive order pledging not to enforce the ban for 75 days. He also suggested a bizarre proposal for the U.S. government to acquire a 50 percent stake in TikTok. This action was seen by some, including Anthony, as an attempt to undermine PAFACAA.

Despite legal experts questioning the President’s authority to override a Congressional law by the Supreme Court. Some companies, including Oracle and Akamai, immediately reinstated their services to TikTok. Google, however, was reported to have waited until February to restore the app to its Google Play store, approximately three weeks after Trump’s order.

Tan is suing Google primarily because he claims the company has refused to turn over internal documents related to decisions around the TikTok ban. As a shareholder, he asserts his right to access corporate records to investigate potential fiduciary breaches or other corporate wrongdoing.

Tan alleges that by restoring TikTok to the Google Play store, Alphabet’s leadership may have exposed the company to significant legal risk by potentially breaking federal law. He argues that the President’s executive order may not legally have the authority to delay the enforcement of a law upheld by the Supreme Court.

The lawsuit signals possibility of Google facing billions of dollars in fines if the federal government were to decide to enforce the ban, given the $5,000 per user penalty.

Mr. Tan is concerned that Google has not been transparent with its investors about the potential risks associated with continuing to distribute TikTok. He points out that Alphabet’s first-quarter 2025 earnings release and SEC 10-Q filing made no disclosures related to the TikTok ban.