The Delhi High Court, on Wednesday, sought response of Future Retail Ltd (FRL) on Amazon’s plea challenging the observations by a single judge. The judge observed that the e-commerce giant’s attempt to control the Indian entity was violative of FEMA and FDI rules. A bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh heard the appeal.
The court issued notice to FRL, Reliance Retail and the Biyanis seeking their stand on the plea by Amazon against some of the observations by the single judge in a 21 December 2020 interim order.
Last month, the high court had rejected FRL’s plea to stop Amazon from intervening in the transaction with Reliance but also observed that the deal was lawful. It also noted that the arbitration agreement was between promoter entity Future Coupons Pvt. Ltd (FCPL) and Amazon, and not with FRL and conflating this to encompass all Future Group deals.
In January 2021, Amazon wrote to SEBI yet again, apprising the market regulator of the formation of the arbitration tribunal at SIAC while urging it to suspend the review of the Future-RIL deal.
The US e-commerce major has written a series of letters to regulators and the bourses, starting with its complaint on 3 October. This is the sixth instance of the e-commerce giant writing to SEBI on the matter.
Amazon’s argument is that Future violated the contract by entering into the deal with rival Reliance.