Future Retail Vs Amazon: Apex Court to hear e-commerce major’s plea in last week of April

File image: Future Group Chairman Kishore Biyani

The Supreme Court will hear a special leave petition filed by Amazon in the case involving the Future Retail-Reliance Industries deal in the last week of April 2021. On 18th March, Amazon mentioned the matter and informed the apex court that the pleadings in the matter have been completed and requested the court to fix the matter for hearing. The petition filed by the e–commerce major had challenged an earlier division bench order of the Delhi High Court.

On 8th February 2021, the division bench of the Delhi High Court had stayed the operation, implementation and execution of the “status quo order” passed earlier by the single judge of the Delhi High Court in the dispute.

The genesis of the ongoing litigation lies in an emergency order of the arbitrator which had ruled in favour of Amazon. On January 25, 2021, the US firm had sought to enforce the emergency order which it had won against the Future Group by preferring an application before a single judge of the Delhi High Court. The single judge on February 2, 2021 passed an ad-interim inter alia restraining Future Retail Limited (FRL) from taking any steps in furtherance of the scheme of amalgamation with Reliance Industries.

Meanwhile, as part of the detailed reasons for passing the earlier status quo order, the single judge of the Delhi High Court on March 18 imposed a cost of Rs 20 lakh on Future, to be deposited with the PM Relief Fund.

Justice JR Midha held that Future Retail, Future Coupons, Kishore Biyani and others violated the emergency award. It issued a show cause notice to Biyani and others asking why they should not be detained in civil prison.

The Supreme Court had specifically ruled that the proceedings before NCLT will be allowed to go on but will not culminate in any final order of sanction of the scheme of arrangement between Reliance Industries & Future Group. In August 2020, Reliance Industries had announced the acquisition of the businesses of Kishore Biyani’s Future Group for Rs 24,713 crores to bolster its fast growing retail vertical.

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