The Supreme Court on Tuesday set aside the Delhi High Court’s single judge orders of February and March 2021 that had set into motion action against the Future Group of Companies and its promoters, the Biyanis, on an application filed by Amazon citing violation of the Singapore Tribunal’s award.
The bench of Chief Justice N.V. Ramana, Justice A.S. Bopanna and Hima Kohli passed the order sending the case back to the Delhi High Court to decide the case again on merits.
This comes as a relief for the Future Group in the dispute with Amazon. Future has already tied up with Reliance Retail.
The Delhi High Court had stayed the sale of assets of Future Retail Limited to Reliance. The order of Justice M.R. Midha had on March 18,2021 directed the attachment of Future Retail properties and those of Kishore Biyani. The judge had also imposed a cost of Rs 20 lakh on Future Retail and had ordered it be deposited within 2 weeks to be utilised for Covid-019 vaccination.
In this case, the Singapore Tribunal was formed after the Supreme Court’s order of 2021. In December 2021, the Competition Commission of India suspended the approval given to the Future-Amazon deal.
In 2019, Amazon had bought 49 percent stake in Future Coupons for Rs 1,500 crore. In 2020, Reliance Retail had announced to buy the Future Group’s retail, wholesale and logistics business for about Rs 25,000 crore.
Amazon had contended that it got the first right to buy stake in Future Retail within 10 years and on this grounds it objected to the deal made by Reliance with Future Retail in 2020.