Amazon asks India regulator to order withdrawal of Future-Reliance deal approval -letter

Future Enterprises

30/08/2021 17:51

(Repeats to widen distribution)
    By Aditya Kalra
    NEW DELHI, Aug 30 (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc  AMZN.O  has
asked India's market regulator to order withdrawal of
conditional approval given to its warring partner Future Group's
$3.4 billion retail assets sale, citing a court ruling in the
U.S. company's favour, a letter seen by Reuters showed.
    Amazon has for months been locked in a dispute with Future,
accusing India's second-largest retailer of violating some
pre-existing contracts by selling its retail assets to market
leader Reliance Industries  RELI.NS  last year. Future denies
any wrongdoing.
    The Supreme Court this month dealt a blow https://reut.rs/2TXP9wx
 to Future when it said an interim decision by a Singapore
arbitrator in October 2020 was valid and enforceable in India.
Amazon had filed the complaint leading to the arbitration
ruling, which put Future's deal with Reliance on hold.
    In a letter to the Securities and Exchange Board of India
(SEBI) on Aug. 17, seen by Reuters, the U.S. company wrote:
"Amazon requests you to take all such action as is necessary to
comply with the Supreme Court Judgment." 
    The letter added that the approval from stock exchanges
"were conditional on the outcome of the ongoing proceedings,"
urging SEBI to order their withdrawal.
    SEBI and the Indian stock exchanges did not immediately
respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours.
    Amazon declined to comment. Future and Reliance did not
respond to requests for comment.
    The letter marks the latest twist in the bitter legal spat
involving two of the world's richest men, Amazon founder Jeff
Bezos and Reliance Chairman and Managing Director Mukesh Ambani.
The eventual outcome is seen reshaping India's pandemic-hit
shopping sector https://www.reuters.com/article/amazon-india-future-reliance-idUSKBN2871AM
 and deciding whether Amazon can blunt Reliance's dominance of
the country's nearly trillion-dollar retail market.
    The dispute is far from over, though. 
    Future Retail  FRTL.NS  on Saturday filed a new case against
Amazon at the Supreme Court, seeking to secure approval of the
deal whose failure it says will cause thousands of job losses
and put bank loans at risk, Reuters reported.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL4N2PZ04G
    In its latest case filing, the Indian retailer is asking the
Supreme Court to hear its challenge afresh. Separately, the
Singapore arbitration panel continues to hear the dispute.

 (Reporting by Aditya Kalra in New Delhi; Editing by Richard
Chang)
 ((aditya.kalra@tr.com; +91-11-49548021; Twitter @adityakalra;))