A Google Shareholder Is Suing the Company Over the TikTok Ban

Tan, who declined to opportunity whether he personally supports nan TikTok ban, believes nan cardinal rumor is enforcement. “There is simply a national rule that says nan TikTok app should not beryllium connected your store, and I tin spot TikTok is connected nan app store,” he says of Google. “Congress passed nan law, and nan Supreme Court upheld it. It’s not debatable.”

In his view, Google is openly ignoring nan law, and he wants to understand nan ineligible ground for that decision, arsenic good arsenic nan grade to which shareholders should beryllium worried astir Google’s imaginable liability. “I felt I should subordinate nan someones who are doing something,” Tan says.

Books and Records

Tan has a history of utilizing records requests and litigation to analyse and combat what he views arsenic injustices. In 2019, he sued a New Hampshire edifice for allegedly violating anti-discrimination laws by barring bookings from adults nether 21 years old. Tan says he dropped nan lawsuit aft nan edifice amended its policy.

This February, Tan revenge a nationalist records petition pinch nan US Department of Justice seeking copies of letters that Attorney General Pam Bondi reportedly sent to companies specified arsenic Google and Apple advising them that they would not beryllium held liable for continuing to administer TikTok. After nan lawyer general’s agency claimed it did not person records matching Tan’s request, he took nan Department of Justice to court. (The New York Times has filed a akin lawsuit.) In a tribunal filing, nan Justice Department denied immoderate wrongdoing.

In March, Tan requested minutes and materials from meetings of Alphabet’s committee of board related to nan TikTok ban, including nan aforesaid reported missive from nan lawyer general. Tan made his petition nether a rule successful Delaware, wherever Alphabet is incorporated, that allows shareholders acting successful “good faith” to inspect “books and records” erstwhile investigating suspected mismanagement. Through a bid of exchanges betwixt Alphabet’s attorneys and his, Tan learned that nan institution possessed astir half a twelve applicable documents but that it wouldn’t move them complete unless ordered to do truthful by a court.

“The committee minutes will show whether aliases not nan committee discussed nan risks associated pinch making nan TikTok exertion disposable done Google Play and, if so, whether and really they assessed nan consequence of liability,” Tan’s suit revenge connected Tuesday states. “The committee minutes will besides show whether nan committee considered whether making TikTok disposable done Google Play constituted a affirmative usurpation of national law.”

Companies that violate nan TikTok ban by continuing to administer nan app tin look penalties of up to $5,000 per user. Tan’s suit alleges that Google should not beryllium relying connected Trump’s executive bid and Bondi’s missive unsocial to shield them from ineligible risks, and that nan tech elephantine could beryllium held liable by a early president—or moreover by Trump, who is known to often alteration his mind.

Gavril, nan lawyer representing Google, contended successful 1 speech pinch nan attorneys representing Tan that “a batch of planets would person to align for that hypothetical harm to go reality. Some would reason that a concerned shareholder should hold for location to beryllium an existent harm earlier progressing to analyse really it came to be.”