Delhi High Court Restrains Future Retail-Reliance Deal on Amazon’s Appeal
By – Ashwathy Nair
- Delhi HC restrains the company from proceeding with a ₹24,713 crore deal with Reliance Industries.
- Future Retail has been directed by the court not to take any action.
- On 28th April, Biyani with others is asked to appear in court.
In a major obstruction that occurred to the Future Group, on Thursday, the company got restrained by the Delhi high court from proceeding with a deal of ₹24,713 crores with Reliance Industries.
The court has ordered Future Retail not to take any further action on the agreement. It also held that the company deliberately violated the order of the Singapore arbitrator.
Future Group along with its directors have also been asked to deposit an amount of ₹20 lakh in PM relief fund to provide Covid-19 vaccines to BPL category’s senior citizen.
Further, the High Court has directed to attach properties of CEO Kishore Biyani along with others related to Future Group. On 28th April, Biyani together with others, are asked to appear in court. They are also asked to show the reason as to why they are not detained for 3 months under civil prison for the violation of the orders of the emergency arbitrator.
On 25th October 2020, the order of the High Court came on the appeal of Amazon seeking direction to order enforcement of the award by Singapore’s EA, restraining FRL from continuing with its ₹24,713 crore deal with Reliance Retail.
The choice is a drawback for Future, the country’s second-largest retailer with over 1,700 outlets, which agreed to sell its retail businesses to market leader Reliance last year.
However, Amazon, which is the e-commerce behemoth that had its eyes set on eventually controlling a portion of the retail assets itself, claimed that a 2019 contract it had with a unit of Future included provisions banning Future Retail from selling them to those on a “restricted persons” list, which included Reliance.
In January, Amazon had moved the Delhi High Court to enforce the EA (Emergency Award) by the SIAC (Singapore International Arbitration Centre), which had asked Future Group not to continue with the RIL deal till it states a final order.
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