NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought a response from the Future group on US e-commerce major Amazon’s plea against the Delhi High Court order staying the arbitration proceedings before a tribunal over Future-Reliance merger deal.
The apex court said that it would hear the matter on February 23. The bench comprised Chief Justice N V Ramana and Justices A S Bopanna and Hima Kohli. The Delhi High Court on January 5 had stayed the Amazon-Future arbitration which is going on before a three-member arbitral tribunal over the latter’s `24,500-crore deal with Reliance Retail.
Further, the Supreme Court on 3rd February had reserved its order on the plea of Future Retail Ltd (FRL) seeking to go ahead with the merger deal. The top court on February 1 also set aside three Delhi High Court orders including attachment of properties of Future Retail and its directors and the refusal to grant a stay on the final arbitral award which had restrained Future Retail from going ahead with its deal with Reliance Retail and had ordered fresh adjudication.
Future group and Amazon are entangled in a tussle since October 2020, when the e-commerce giant dragged the latter to arbitration at SIAC. Amazon argued that Future Retail has violated its contract by entering into a deal for the sale of its assets to Reliance Retail on a slump sale basis for `24,500 crore. Since 2020, the dispute is being fought at various courts.