Amazon vs Future Retail: SC bars NCLT from making final order on sanctioning of schemes b/w Future-Reliance

On Monday, the Supreme Court restrained the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) from passing the final order on sanctioning of schemes between Future Retail Limited and Reliance Retail. The court was hearing a petition filed by e-commerce firm Amazon to stall the ₹24,713 crore deal.

A bench comprising of Justice RF Nariman and Justice BR Gavai issued the interim order, stating the tribunal will not sanction the scheme even if the meetings of the creditors and shareholders of the Future groups takes place. The top court has also issued notices to Future Retail Ltd, its chairperson Kishore Biyani and others and sought their replies.

US-based Amazon had sought to maintain the status quo on the FRL-Reliance deal till various legal issues relating to the matter were finally decided.

While issuing notice, the bench said that the reply to the appeal of Amazon must be filed in three weeks and rejoinder after two weeks thereafter and the US company’s appeal will be listed for hearing after five weeks. Amazon had in January approached Delhi High Court seeking enforcement of the interim order of the Emergency Arbitrator (EA) at the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) that had restrained FRL from going ahead with the deal with Reliance.

“No provision for appeal is provided against an order passed under Section 17(2) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act. The respondents (FRL) have not challenged the EA order itself, but have preferred to challenge the single judge order enforcing the EA order,” the US giant said in its petition to the top court.

On February 8, a division bench of the high court led by Chief Justice DN Patel had stayed a single judge’s direction of February 2 putting a temporary freeze on the deal between Future Retail and Reliance. The order came on FRL’s appeal seeking a stay of the February 2 order where the firm claimed that due to the status quo position, the proceedings before NCLT for approving the amalgamation scheme were held up.

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