The Supreme Court on Wednesday allowed Amazon Inc to resume proceedings related to its ongoing dispute with Future over a proposed ₹24,713 crore asset sale deal with Reliance Group at the Singapore International Arbitration Center (SIAC). Now the Supreme Court will hear Amazon’s petition seeking interim protection on March 23. Along with this, the Supreme Court has also directed Future Retail, Future Coupons to file a reply on Amazon’s plea seeking protection. Future has also agreed to resume arbitration proceedings with Amazon.
A division bench of the Delhi High Court had in January stayed the arbitration proceedings between Amazon and Future Group before the international tribunal. A bench headed by Justice NV Ramana in the Supreme Court told both the sides that if they do not have any issue, the court can pass an order to resume the arbitration proceedings. Amazon and Future both voluntarily agreed to this. The arbitration proceedings were to be held in the first week of January. However, after the order of the Delhi High Court, it has been stalled for almost two months. On Wednesday, the top court had asked both the parties to file their replies in this regard.
Amazon appeals to Supreme Court, government should stop Reliance’s acquisition of Future Retail Stores!
Future argues that Amazon can seek a protective order from the Arbitral Tribunal but not the Supreme Court. Earlier, the Supreme Court had said that the court will consider Amazon’s plea against the Future Retail stores being taken over by Reliance on Wednesday. Let us tell you that Amazon had told the Supreme Court that negotiations for a settlement between Amazon, Biyani Group and Reliance on the assets of Future Retail were inconclusive.
‘Amazon is taking us down on our knees, we’re broken’
Amazon Inc’s lawyer Gopal Subramaniam had said that sometimes we are very optimistic, but the end result is nothing. Meetings were held at a higher level but no resolution was reached.” Amazon accused Future of transferring its assets to Reliance even though the case is pending. Whereas, Future said the lawsuit pushed it to bankruptcy. Its lawyer Harish Salve Said Amazon is taking us down on our knees, we are broken.
Future Retail said shop takeover started 15 days ago. Reliance is taking action despite the lawsuit. we can not do anything. What do we do? We haven’t signed anywhere. The landowners are terminating our lease. Let us tell you that the acquisition of Reliance started from the night of 25 February. The Future Group has over 1,700 outlets, including the popular Big Bazaar store. Future has been unable to make lease payments for some of its outlets. As a result, Reliance transferred the leases of some stores to its name and sublet them to Future to operate the stores.