Ahead of Delhi High Court's decision, Future Group appeals to the Singapore arbitrator to exclude Future Retail from the fight with Amazon

• The court, which will give its final word today, had earlier said that a status quo will be maintained until it pronounces the order.
• The Delhi High Court had upheld the emergency arbitrator award from Singapore that was in Amazon’s favour.
• Future Group’s appeal to exclude Future Retail comes as Biyani hopes to save his debt-ridden Big Bazaar chain with a sale to Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani.

Kishore Biyani’s Future Group awaits Delhi High Court’s order on Amazon’s plea to stop its proceedings with Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Retail. The court, which will give its final word today, had earlier said that a status quo will be maintained until it pronounces the order.

But ahead of the order, Future Group has reportedly moved the Singapore arbitration court to remove Future Retail from the fight with Amazon. The Delhi High Court had upheld the emergency arbitrator award from Singapore that was in Amazon’s favour and ordered a status quo.

Future Group’s appeal to exclude Future Retail comes as Biyani hopes to save his debt-ridden Big Bazaar chain with a sale to Asia’s richest man Mukesh Ambani. The retail giant claims that Amazon’s deal was with Future Coupons and not Future Retail, where it is claiming its rights.

In December 2020, the Delhi High Court order by a single judge had essentially ruled that Amazon cannot use an agreement with one Future group company i.e. Future Coupon to exert control over a deal struck by another company i.e. Future Retail. That would be in violation of India’s Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA). Not just that, the court had also gone on to say that this “amounts to tortious interference.”

The legal battle between Amazon and Future Group over the latter’s deal with Reliance has been going on for months now.

On October 25, global e-commerce giant Amazon got a stay order on the Future Retail and Reliance deal from a Singapore arbitrator, and had written to BSE and SEBI to uphold the decision. Amazon had sent a legal notice to Future Coupons over Future Group’s ₹25,000 crore deal with Reliance. Amazon had said that it was denied the Rights of First Refusal for the deal with Future Group.

The Singapore court had ruled in favour of Amazon and passed an interim order that put the RIL-Future deal on hold.

Since then, the two parties have gone through several legal hearings that also reached India’s top court – the Supreme Court.

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