Delhi HC refuses to restrain Amazon, says suit filed by Future Retail maintainable

The Delhi High Court on Monday refused to restrain Amazon from interfering in Future Retail’s deal with Reliance Retail by writing to the statutory authority in view of the Emergency Award.

A bench of Justice Mukta Gupta ruled that the statutory authorities were free to form their own opinion as per law.

The bench observed that prima facie the suit filed by Future Retail was maintainable.

The observations were passed while the court was hearing a plea for an interim injunction restraining Amazon from writing to the SEBI, Competition Commission of India and other authorities about the arbitral order against its assets sale.

It held that the Emergency Award was valid, and the Kishore Biyani-owned company’s resolution approving the transaction with Reliance was also valid.

Amazon wrote a couple of letters to the capital markets regulator SEBI urging the regulator and the stock exchanges not to give a go-ahead to the Future-Retail deal in view of the Singapore arbitrator’s interim order.

In October, an arbitration court in Singapore had directed a temporary stay on Future Retail’s buyout by the RIL-led Reliance Retail.

Future Retail Ltd (FRL) filed a caveat in the Delhi High Court last month following the Singapore arbitration court’s interim stay order.

Earlier, the Future group had urged the Indian stock exchanges, the BSE and the NSE, to process its application for the deal with Reliance Retail, as the arbitrator’s order does not restrict market regulator SEBI or the exchanges from considering and approving the scheme.

In a major turn of events in the buyout of the businesses of the debt laden Future Group by Reliance Retail, e-commerce giant Amazon.com in October stepped in and said that the Future Group violated a contract with it by entering into the sale agreement with the Mukesh Ambani-led retail major.

Last year, Amazon acquired a 49 per cent stake in Future Coupons, a Future group entity.

In August, Reliance Retail Ventures Limited (RRVL), a subsidiary of RIL, announced that it is acquiring the retail, wholesale, logistics and warehousing business from the Future Group as going concerns on a slump sale basis for a lump sum aggregate consideration of Rs 24,713 crore, subject to adjustments as set out in the composite scheme of arrangement.