How to stop publishing a new version of extension that is marked as 'Pending Review' in chrome store
Unfortunately this is still an issue as of today (8/14/2020) and there is no way to cancel a submission for review.
A recent change when submitting an extension for review there is an option to automatically publish the extension after passing the review. This is checked by default in the window prompt. As a practice I would recommend not allowing publication after a review to provide you with the final decision when the extension is published to the Chrome Web Store.
Go to the Developer Dashboard for your extension and click on Send Feedback in the lower left-hand corner:
From there you'll be able to make your request directly to the Chrome Extension Support team.
There now is a defer option. Just used it for the first time so hope it works as expected!
