Supreme Court reserves order on Amazon’s plea against Future-Reliance deal

The Supreme Court has reserved judgment on e-commerce giant Amazon’s plea challenging the Rs 24,713 crore deal for the merger of Future Retail Limited (FRL) with Reliance Retail. Senior advocates Harish Salve and Gopal Subramaniam, appearing for FRL and Amazon, presented their case in the matter.
During the hearing, Justice R. F. Nariman and B. R. Gavai said he was closing arguments in the matter and the verdict was being reserved. Now we close the matter (hearing), the bench said. The decision is reserved.
US e-commerce giant Amazon.com NV Investment Holdings LLC and FRL are embroiled in a legal battle over the deal.
has told the court that the Singapore-based emergency arbitrator (EA)’s decision to restrain FRL from the merger deal with Reliance Retail is valid and should be implemented.
In this case, senior advocate Harish Salve, FRL and senior advocate Gopal Subramaniam argued for Amazon, after which the bench of Justice RF Nariman and Justice BR Gavai has reserved the decision for the time being and the court will later Will give its verdict on this.
In fact, Amazon had moved the apex court challenging the order of a division bench of the Delhi High Court, which had cleared the Reliance-FRL deal.
Salve, representing FRL, argued that there is no presumption of EA under the Indian Law on Arbitration and Conciliation and also, there was no arbitration agreement to that effect. He stressed that there is no provision for an EA under Indian law.
On February 8, the bench had stayed the single judge’s order on the deal in which he had asked the FRL and various statutory bodies to maintain status quo.
Amazon told the bench that the Biyani family of Future Group had negotiated some settlement with it and were bound to abide by the EA’s decision restraining FRL from going ahead with the merger deal with Reliance Retail. has been installed.
He reiterated that the EA’s decision should be implemented. The e-commerce giant insisted that FRL is bound by Singapore’s EA award, which prevented it from going ahead with its merger deal with Reliance Retail.
The High Court’s division bench had given this interim order during the hearing of the FRL’s plea challenging the February 2 order of the single judge. The single judge bench had held that the EA’s decision was valid and enforceable.
The Future Group had in August last year entered into an agreement to sell its retail, wholesale, logistics and warehousing units to Reliance. Thereafter, Amazon took the matter of alleged breach of contract by the Future Group to EA.