Kishor Biyani’s future group filed a lawsuit against Amazon in Delhi high court in a bid to stop the US based E-tailer from “misusing” the Singapore interim order and interfering in its deal of Rs. 24,713 crores with Reliance. The lawsuit was filed in September last year.
This comes after Singapore arbitration tribunal stayed future group- reliance deal, after the case filed by amazon, stating that the deal violated its contractual agreement by selling the retail assets of future group to reliance.
In stock exchange filing, in September, future retail stated that it wanted relief from Amazon “against Amazon.com NV investment Holdings LLC from interfering with the transaction by misusing an interim order issued by an emergency arbitrator, appointed by the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC)”.
This certainly intensifies feud between the former-world’s richest man Jeff Bezos and Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani.
Future retail group has time and again retreated that since amazon is not considered as one of the signatories of the deal and it does not hold any right to interfere. Moreover, it maintains that it does not consider SIAC stay on the deal as permanent or binding.
It was in October when amazon had approached SIAC , stating Future Retail’s violation of its contractual agreement by selling assets of future group to reliance. Consequently, SIAC had constituted a bench to review that matter, which in turn stayed the deal. In retaliation retail group approached Delhi high court for the matter to be reviewed .
The dispute stems from Amazon’s 2019 investment in 50% of stake in Future coupons amounting to a significant amount of Rs 1431 crore. Future coupons is future retail’s unlisted firm, which in turn holds 10% of stake in future retail. The deal also gave amazon the right to buy into future retail ltd (FRL) after a period of between 3 years and 10 years. As a part of the deal, biyani had also entered into the contract restriction of sale of shares to specified persons and enterprises. These “certain people” included reliance industries amongst another retailers.
After the amazon deal, biyani’s future retail’s performance languished as it started incurring losses. This had effects on its share prices as he was not able to repay his obligations. It is when, in august, reliance announced the deal to acquire stakes in Future Retail assets including its debt obligations.
Several experts have maintained that the stay should be lifted otherwise biyani’s Future Retail would default on its obligations.
E-commerce giant Amazon is likely to file a fresh petition as early as this week in Delhi high court in the case of ongoing legal feud. Sources state, “amazon will file a new petition following the high court’s observations last month. Some of the issues in the future dispute were left open ended and amazon wants to get them addressed.”