Judge sets TikTok case hearing for November 4 after blocking a Trump administration order to ban the app from being downloaded in the US

 A US judge has set a post-election date for a TikTok case preliminary hearing after initially blocking a Trump administration order to ban the app from being downloaded in the United States. 

US District Judge Carl Nichols said on Tuesday that he will hold a November 4 hearing on whether to allow the US government to bar transactions with the Chinese-owned short video-sharing app.

TikTok owner ByteDance has said it will effectively determine whether the video app will be banned for use in the United States.    

It comes after Nichols last month temporarily blocked a Trump administration order that was set to ban Apple and Google from offering TikTok for download.

He declined at the time to block restrictions on technical and business arrangements that are crucial for the app to function properly. 

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US District Judge Carl Nichols said on Tuesday that he will hold a November 4 hearing on whether to allow the US government to bar transactions with TikTok

The Washington-based judge must now decide whether to block the other aspects of the order that are set to take effect on November 12. 

The new hearing is scheduled for one day after the presidential election.

President Donald Trump has for months been pressing for TikTok to be passed into US ownership.

The injunction last month came amid negotiations to hammer out terms of a preliminary deal for Walmart Inc and Oracle Corp to take stakes in a new company, TikTok Global, that would oversee US operations. 

Trump has said he had given the deal his 'blessing.'

Key terms of the deal - including who will have majority ownership - are in dispute. 

ByteDance has also said any deal will need to be approved by China and Beijing has revised its list of technologies subject to export bans in a way that gives it a say over any TikTok deal. 

John E. Hall, a lawyer for TikTok, has previously argued that the ban was 'unprecedented' and 'irrational'. 

Trump's administration contends that TikTok poses national security concerns as personal data collected on 100 million Americans who use the app could be obtained by China's government. 

Any deal will also still need to be reviewed by the US government's Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States. 

The Justice Department said a preliminary injunction would be 'interfering with a formal national security judgment of the president; altering the landscape with respect to ongoing CFIUS negotiations; and continuing to allow sensitive and valuable user information to flow to ByteDance with respect to all new users.'