Amazon moves Supreme Court in Future-Reliance deal dispute

E-commerce major Amazon has moved the Supreme Court in a bid to block Future group’s Rs 24,713-crore deal with Reliance, according to sources. The development comes after a recent Delhi High Court’s ruling that stayed a previous order on status quo of the deal and ruling that statutory authorities cannot be restrained from acting in accordance with law. Amazon has approached the Supreme court in the matter against Future, sources close to the development said. Future and Amazon did not respond to e-mailed queries. The High Court order on Monday came over an urgent petition moved by FRL after a single-member bench directed maintaining status-quo over Future’s deal with Reliance.

The scheme of arrangement has already received approval from CCI and no objection from SEBI and bourses, following which it had approached NCLT Mumbai on January 26, 2021. Last month, Amazon had approached the Delhi High Court seeking enforcement of the interim order of the Emergency Arbitrator (EA) at the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) that had restrained FRL from going ahead with the deal with Reliance. Justice Midha had directed FRL and other parties to maintain status quo till pronouncement of the reserved order. Amazon and Future have been locked in a bitter legal tussle after the US e-commerce giant dragged Future Group to arbitration at SIAC, arguing that the latter had violated their contract by entering into the deal with rival Reliance.

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Amazon had invested in Future Coupons in August 2019, with an option of buying into the flagship Future Retail after a period of three to 10 years. In August last year, Future group had entered into a deal with billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s RIL to sell its retail, wholesale, logistics and warehousing units in a Rs 24,713-crore deal. On October 25, 2020, an interim award was passed in favour of Amazon with a single-judge bench of V K Rajah barring Future Retail from taking any step to dispose of or encumber its assets or issuing any securities to secure any funding from a restricted party.