In the latest chain of events, Delhi High Court delivered its verdict on the Future Retail’s plea to sell assets to Reliance Industries. In a major setback to Future Retail, the Delhi High Court on Monday, 21 December, refused to impose restrains on Amazon from addressing regulatory bodies against its asset sale with Reliance Industries.
The resolution dated August 29 was declared to be neither void nor contrary to law. The plea by Future Retail was announced to be maintainable. Also, the representation of Amazon to SEBI and CCI was declared to not be illegal. No interim injunction can thus can be granted by the High Court with regards to this matter.
The order was made public by Justice Mukta Gupta in the suit by Kishore Biyani-owned Future Retail Limited after Emergency Arbitrator of the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) curbed Future Group from taking any decision in furtherance of the transaction with Reliance Retail, reported the Bar and Bench.
Earlier this year, Reliance had declared the acquisition of retail businesses of Future Group for Rs 24,713 crore, and at the time, it was known that Amazon’s shareholding in Future Coupons would continue. Amazon was not acceptant of the clause that the 2019 deal it signed with Future prohibited the Indian company from selling its retail assets to certain companies. Amazon had also secured an interim award against the transaction between RIL and the Future group after Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) put the transaction on hold.
The Future Group had sought a plea to hold back Amazon from dabbling in the Reliance Retail-Future deal.
