Arbitration panel rejects Future's plea on Reliance deal in dispute with Amazon

Future Enterprises

22/10/2021 05:12

NEW DELHI, Oct 22 (Reuters) - A Singapore arbitration panel
has rejected Future Retail's  FRTL.NS  plea to quash an order
from last year that put its $3.4 billion deal with Reliance on
hold, in a boost for its partner Amazon.com Inc  AMZN.O  which
is seeking to block the transaction.
    Amazon has been locked in a tussle https://www.reuters.com/technology/singapore-arbitration-panel-says-indias-future-retail-is-party-dispute-with-2021-10-20
 with Future and accuses it of breaking contracts when it sold
its retail assets to Indian market leader Reliance last year.
Future denies any wrongdoing.
    After the Singapore arbitrator put the deal on hold in
October 2020 in an interim decision, Future had appealed to
revoke it. The panel has rejected that application, Future said
in a statement to Indian stock exchanges on Friday. 
    "The arbitration tribunal has passed a decision dismissing
the application to vacate the interim award," Future's statement
said. "The Company would be deciding on its future course of
action based on the legal advice and available remedies in law."
    The dispute started after Future, India's second-largest
retailer with over 1,700 stores, entered into a deal last year
to sell its retail, wholesale, logistics and certain other
businesses to Reliance, after COVID-19 hit its operations hard.
    Amazon had its sights on ultimately owning some of Future's
retail assets itself. It has argued a 2019 deal it had with a
Future unit contained clauses prohibiting the Indian group from
selling its retail assets to anyone on a "restricted persons"
list that included Reliance.
    Amazon brought proceedings against Future before a Singapore
arbitration panel, and the dispute is also being fought in
various Indian legal forums.

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