E-commerce giant Amazon and Indian retail tycoon, Future group have both agreed with the Supreme court to move their case to a more appropriate tribunal, the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC), on April 4th.
The case that has currently tangled the two behemoths of the industry involves Reliance Inc as well. Future Retail accused Amazon selling $3.4 billion USD worth of Future’s retail assets to their South Asian apex rivals, Reliance Industries. After the very public allegation, Amazon decided to call of the entire transaction. In a twist, Amazon accused Future of violating multiple already agreed upon terms and conditions. Future has of course, urged that they have not broken and rules or terms and have always upheld them with honour. After failing to reach an objective solution, the case was transferred to the Supreme Court of India for their decision.
The Supreme Court bench, headed by the Chief Justice of India, NV Ramana has ordered the belligerents to submit a comprehensive joint memorandum. The apex court also announced that they will transfer all information to the SIAC in an appropriate manner to make it smooth for all parties.
Both parties have agreed to move the case from the Supreme Court to the SIAC tribunal
This also comes at a time where Future group lost two of their independent directors. Mr. Anand Chandrasekaran and Mrs. Malini Chopra both resigned from the board of the company, yesterday on 4th April. Heavy workload with no balance was the primary reason both of them cited when questioned about their sudden resignation.
Amazon is strictly against Future retail’s decision of committing to a merger deal along with Reliance Group.
Currently, Future Groups numbers are quite down trodden especially when you compare the current numbers to pre-covid times. The future of Future Group is currently balancing on razor string and they would like the merger to go through smoothly for the company to survive and start making profits.
As Future has all their toes dipped into the retail world, the conglomerate was rocked to its feet due to the coronavirus and as the lockdowns kept getting extended, they started drowning further and further to the bottom. For the fiscal year of 2021, their income slumped by 68.13% as they had a revenue of a paltry Rs. 6437.40 crores as compared to the Rs. 20,201 crores the group gained as a revenue just the previous year.
