Supreme Court Orders Arbitration Resumption On Future Retail's Merger With Reliance Retail

The Supreme Court on Wednesday ordered resumption of arbitral proceedings before the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) tribunal over Future Retail Limited's (FRL) merger deal to the tune of Rs 24,500 crore with Reliance Retail Limited (RIL).

A bench comprising Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justices Krishna Murari and Hima Kohli took note of the consent of US e-commerce major Amazon and Future group over the resumption of arbitral proceedings before the SIAC.

The bench said the SIAC tribunal would pass an appropriate order on a plea of FRL filed under a provision of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act which provides for passing an order if the “arbitral tribunal finds that the continuation of the proceedings has for any other reason become unnecessary or impossible”.

Earlier, the top court had asked the Future Group and Amazon to jointly urge the Delhi High Court to first hear the enforcement petitions of Amazon which also relate to the preservation of assets of FRL.

Amazon had moved the top court against the January 5 order of the Delhi High Court, which stayed the proceedings before the arbitral tribunal over Future Retail's merger deal with Reliance Retail.

Amazon and Future Group are engaged in multi-forum litigation on the issue of FRL's merger deal with Reliance Retail Ltd after the US e-commerce giant dragged FRL into arbitration at the SIAC in October 2020.