Future-Amazon: Supreme Court sets aside Delhi HC order on emergency award

In a major relief to the Future group, the Supreme Court on February 1 set aside the previous orders of the Delhi High Court containing adverse remarks and coercive action against the Future group. The issue of enforcement of the emergency award, in Future group's dispute with Amazon, has been remanded to the high court to be heard afresh on merit.

The apex court bench headed by Chief Justice of India NV Ramana was delivering its ruling on a batch of pleas filed by the Future group companies that pertained to the enforcement of the award passed by an emergency arbitrator under the Singapore International Arbitration Centre's rules that injuncted Future group from proceedings with its Rs 25,000 crore asset sale deal with a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries Ltd.

The Kishore Biyani-led group had challenged orders of the Delhi High Court passed in February 2021 that directed for the enforcement of this emergency award, made adverse remarks against the promoters of Future group, and directed for coercive steps to be taken against Biyani and other key persons in the Future group management.

While the Supreme Court today set aside the order pertaining to coercive steps and adverse remarks, the issue concerning enforcement of the emergency award has been remanded to the high court and must be heard afresh, the court said.

The legal battle between Amazon and Future began back in 2020 when Amazon invoked arbitration after Future Retail announced its asset sale deal with Reliance Industries Ltd’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Reliance Retail. Amazon claimed that its deal with Future Coupons prevented Future Retail also, in capacity of a related party, from entering into agreements with certain entities including the Mukesh Dhirubhai Ambani group. Future Retail claimed that it was not bound by the deal between Amazon and Future Retail’s promoter firm.

The asset sale deal between India’s two leading retailers was stayed by an emergency arbitrator in October 2020 and the validity of this order was finally affirmed by the Supreme Court in August 2021. While this merger remains stayed, Future group firm moved CCI accusing Amazon of withholding pertinent information leading to the CCI order of December which has now led to a stay on the arbitration proceedings granted by the Delhi High Court.

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