Days before hearing in the Supreme Court, which had lent Amazon Inc, Reliance Industries Ltd, and Future Retail Ltd 15 days to adjust a settlement, the US firm on Tuesday put up objections to Future Group’s purported action to transfer and alienate its investments to the Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani (MDA) group.
Amazon, in a public notice, announced that the transfer of Future Retail Ltd’s (FRL) retail assets are being performed confidentially by cheating to courts, tribunal and statutory councils.
It has now come to light that FRL and its advocates have been attempting to eliminate the substratum of the dispute by purportedly transporting and alienating FRL’s retail assets including the retail stores in service of the MDA group,” told Amazon in a public notice.
The notice by Amazon further notified that “It may be remarked that Future Group and its promoters made false suggestions before the Supreme Court asserting that the retail assets would proceed to vest in Future Retail until the scheme of agreement with Reliance Group is authorized by the National Company Law Tribunal. Such incorrect statements were made knowingly”.
This comes in between digressive litigation that Future and Amazon are witnessing before the Supreme Court for a recommended ₹24,713 crore deal between Future and Reliance organization. The allocation of notice may further involve and prolong the legal battle between the two.
However, Reliance has taken over almost 500 stores regulated by Future Group parent company of hypermarket chain Big Bazaar which is encountering an acute economic crisis.
Reliance’s takeover commenced on the night of 25 February. Future – which has more than 1,700 stores, including popular Big Bazaar stores – has been unable to make lease expenses of some of its outlets. As a verdict, Reliance transferred the leases of some stores to its name and sublet them to Future to regulate the stores.
Reliance has begun to take possession of the premises in which Future Retail is supervising its marts such as Big Bazaar and assisted them with its brand stores. It has also begun to offer jobs to employees of Future Retail stores and fetch them on Reliance Retail’s payroll.
