(Reuters) -Alphabet's Google on Friday failed to persuade a U.S. appeals court to further freeze an order forcing it to make sweeping reforms to its app store Play while it challenges the decision in a lawsuit by "Fortnite" video game maker Epic Games.

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied Google's request to continue its pause of the order, which requires the technology company to restore competition by allowing users to download rival app stores within its Play store and by making Play's app catalog available to those competitors, among other reforms.