In Battle With Amazon For Future Group, Reliance Scores In Supreme Court

In a major relief to Future Group, the Supreme Court on Thursday halted seizure of assets owned by Future Coupons, Future Retail and Future Group promoter Kishore Biyani.

A single judge bench of the Delhi High Court had ordered the attachment of assets in March. It had directed the Future group firms and promoters to file their affidavits giving details of their assets for violating an emergency arbitrator award.

The Supreme Court directed market regulator SEBI, National Companies Law Tribunal (NCLT) and Competition Commission of India (CCI), not to pass any order against the Future Group for four weeks. 

The Supreme Court passed the order after hearing elaborate arguments by Senior Advocates Harish Salve and Mukul Rohatgi for Future group and Senior Advocate Gopal Subramanium for Amazon. The top court said it was taking the decision to balance the interest of both parties.

In its order, the Supreme Court said, "....taking into consideration the submissions advanced by the learned senior counsel for the parties and particularly the fact that the parties have approached the Singapore International Arbitration Centre for vacating the Emergency Award passed by the Emergency Arbitrator.....we think it fit to balance the interest of both the parties by staying all further proceedings before the Delhi High Court for the time being.''

The Supreme Court will hear the matter again after four weeks. The matter had come up for hearing before a three-judge bench of Chief Justice N V Ramana, Justice Surya Kant and Justice A S Bopanna.

Earlier Future Coupons Private Limited had moved Supreme Court, seeking to stay an order passed by the Delhi High Court to attach the assets of Future Coupons, Future Retail and Future Group promoter Kishore Biyani.

A single judge of the Delhi High Court had ordered the attachment of its assets in March and had directed the Future group firms and promoters to file their affidavits giving details of their assets for violating an Emergency Arbitrator award.

The Emergency Arbitrator of Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC), had on October 25 last year, restrained the Future group from going ahead with its Rs 24,731 crore deal with Reliance Industries to sell its retail and wholesale business, and the logistics and warehousing business.

On August 6, 2021, the Supreme Court had ruled in favour of e-commerce giant Amazon against the proposed Rs 24,713-crore merger deal between Future Retail Limited (FRL) and Reliance Retail.

Supreme Court had held that an award of an Emergency Arbitrator of a foreign country is enforceable under the Indian Arbitration and Conciliation Act.