Tanvi Sinha
The Supreme Court sent a notice to Future Retail Ltd (FRL) concerning Amazon’s plea against the decision ruled by the Delhi High Court where they directed to maintain status-quo.
A two-judge bench of Justice R F Nariman and B R Gavai sought answers regarding the plea to the FRL chairperson Kishore Biyani and others and that the reply to the appeal be filed in three weeks and rejoinder after two weeks.
Because of this, the appeal is now listed for hearing after five weeks. Before the hearing, the Top Court allowed the National Company Law Tribunal to hear the case but not pass any sanctions in its durations.
The issue arose when Amazon who had an agreement with Future, found out that FRL had partnered with Reliance.
The Ambani owned company happened to be one of the 5-6 companies barred by Amazon in their agreement, for any kind of contract done without their consent.
Hence started a corporate battle between Amazon’s Bezos and Reliance’s Mukesh Ambani where Amazon dragged the issue to the Singapore Arbitration Centre (SIAC).
While SEBI and Competition Commission of India cleared the deal, SIAC held it to be faulty and awarded an arbitration award in Amazon’s favour.Future has been fighting this particular award with counsels for FRL stating that the SIAC award does not apply in India with Harish Salve for FRL saying that “Amazon is acting like the East India Company of the 21st Century. Amazon’s idea is that you either do business with me or shut down.”
Read also: Future Retail to defend petition filed by Amazon in Supreme Court