The dispute remains unresolved between the U.S e-commerce giant Amazon and India’s Future Retail Ltd, as FRL has urged the Delhi High Court to grant the company a temporary injunction to stop Amazon from “derailing” the deal between FRL and Reliance Industries Ltd.
Kishore Biyani’s Future Retail plans to sell its retail, wholesale and other businesses to Reliance Industries. However, Amazon won an injection in October from the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) to halt the $3.38 billion deal between FRL and RIL. However, FRL had responded by saying that the order is not enforceable under Indian law.
Future Retail has now taken the case to the Delhi High Court, seeking to prevent Amazon from interfering in the FRL-RIL deal. Amazon says that according to its deal with a Future Retail unit it earlier did, FRL cannot sell its retail assets to anyone in the “restricted persons” list which includes any firms owned by Mukesh Ambani.
Amazon has a 49% stake in Future Coupons, which owns 7.3% of Future Retail. According to Amazon’s lawyer Gopal Subramanium, the agreement between Amazon and FRL requires the company to take consent of its current shareholders before the transfer of any shares, and no consent was sought before proceeding with the deal in question.
Harish Salve, who is representing FRL has alleged that these attempts made by Amazon to stop the deal are part of a “ploy” to control the market. “Please do not allow this American giant to kill Future only to further its illegitimate interest in making sure (that) Reliance (Industries) doesn’t get its hand on these 1,400 shops (owned by Future Group). That is this game. If I can’t get it, let’s sink the ship,” said Salve, during the court hearing on Tuesday.
Mukul Rohatgi represented Future Coupons and Abhishek Singhvi, Reliance Retail. After hearing arguments from both sides, Justice Mukta Gupta has issued summons to Amazon, Future Coupons Pvt Ltd (FCPL) and Reliance Retail Ltd (RRL) and has asked the companies to file their written statements within 30 days. The legal proceeding to continue on Wednesday.
