Chhavideep Singh
Source: The News Minute
We all must know by now about the Amazon and Future Group dispute over the amalgamation of Future Group with Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Limited. In recent activity over the matter, Amazon has taken the legal battle to the Delhi High Court seeking imprisonment of Future Group’s Kishore Biyani along with other company promoters who have allegedly violated the laws and regulations of the securities market of India by illegally selling group company shares to Reliance Industries Limited.
The petition was filed on January 25th in the Delhi High Court and Amazon is determined to seek imprisonment for Future Group members by asking the court to enforce arbitration order, according to the petition filed by Amazon in the Delhi HC.
According to an earlier report by Live Mint, Amazon also tried to cancel on the arrangement between Future Group and Reliance Industries by enforcing the order of SIAC- Singapore International Arbitration Centre. The Reliance-Future deal was temporarily stayed by the SIAC subjected to regulatory approvals through the Delhi High Court.
However, recently the regulatory authority which is the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) gave a green signal to the Future-Reliance deal which includes Kishore Biiyani’s Future Group to sell the company’s retail, logistics, warehousing business, wholesale business to Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Retail which is a subsidiary of the umbrella- Reliance Industries Limited for Rs 24,713 crore.
Amazon mentioned in its petition to the Delhi High Court that if the court does not grant relief to the petitioner as per the filed petition, Future Group will proceed to sell its shares to Reliance Retail and Amazon’s investment in Future Coupons (FCPL) will go in vain. Amazon further mentioned that the investment is not compensable in monetary value which would ultimately cause irreparable loss to the petitioner, as reported by Inc42.
Kishore Biyani has allegedly breached the non-compete clause of Future Group and Amazon deal by selling to Reliance Retail. Amazon had previously asked the court for NOCs (No-Objection Certificates) for Future Group and Reliance Retail deal citing the stay order of Singapore’s SIAC. Following the matter, Amazon also issued a legal notice to Future Group over their violation of non-compete contract which was violated in August 2020 when Future Group announced its deal with Reliance Industries Limited.
In Future Group’s defence, Kishore Biyani said in a statement that Amazon left the company in a lurch even thigh it owned a very small percentage of stake in the company. He further added that Future Group’s deal with Reliance Retail is a saviour of its business, its stakeholders and its employees. In a report by Inc42, it is mentioned that Kishore Biyani claims to have reached out to Amazon eight times seeking financial assistance but no help was provided.
This deal between Future Group and Reliance, if successful will cause irreparable loss to the e-commerce giant and will also dominate the retail industry in India leaving Amazon far behind in the competition.