Lekha G
The Supreme Court has postponed the hearing of the case between Amazon and Kishore Biyani’s Future Group over Rs 24,713 crore deal between Future and Reliance Industries Ltd to June 28 due to the requirement to attend more concerning matters amid the stormy pandemic situation.
One of the persons close to the matter said that, “This may impact Amazon as Future Group’s retail and wholesale stores will now give priority to RIL’s retail orders over Amazon’s orders despite Amazon’s tie-up with Future”.
However, the Supreme Court has not stopped the parties from working towards the deal.
On 5 January, the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) formed a panel of top international lawyers to hear the case which would be binding upon the parties and be legally considered valid as per India’s Arbitration Law.
In case, SIAC passes judgment before the Supreme Court, Amazon and Future will be able to add SIAC’s order in their affidavits before the Apex Court which would settle the matter much earlier as it would be easy for Supreme Court to pass the judgment.
On 25 October, an emergency award by SIAC had restrained the Reliance-Future deal.
Amazon has further started working on a massive expansion plan to ensure its online retail business does not get hindered in case it loses the legal battle with Future Group.
It is also planning to increase its massive warehouses called Fulfilment Centres (FC’s) by 30% within a year in India so that customers in remote locations could also get speedy delivery.
Amazon India has further drawn an internal target to increase the revenue from exports from 3 billion to 10 billion in the next four years. Thus, Amazon’s real battle is to gain an edge as a retail e-commerce player in India.