Employees of Future Retail seek SC’s help on asset sale
NEW DELHI: Employees of India’s Future Retail have asked the Supreme Court to allow the company to sell its retail assets and rule against Amazon.com Inc in an ongoing dispute, citing risks to 27,000 jobs, according to a legal filing seen by Reuters.
Future has failed to close its $3.4 billion deal to sell its retail assets to market leader Reliance Industries due to successful legal challenges by Amazon, which argues that Future violated some pre-existing contracts the two sides had struck, by deciding to sell its retail assets to Reliance.
As India’s Supreme Court hears the dispute, a group of Future Retail (FRL) employees have filed a petition urging the court to rule against Amazon, saying their livelihoods were at stake. If the deal fails, Future “will be pushed into liquidation, resulting in its 27,000 employees losing their livelihoods. The families of employees will be on the streets,” the FRL Employee Welfare Association said in a 20 November filing, seen by Reuters. The filing has not previously been reported and is not public.
Future, which denies any wrongdoing, has said it would face liquidation if the Reliance deal doesn’t go through, while Amazon has repeatedly argued that its 2019 investment into a Future unit prohibits the Future-Reliance deal.
The employee’s filing will likely be heard on 8 December, when the Supreme Court is next due to take up the matter.
The employee association also cited salary cuts in the range of 40-50% between April and July last year due to distress at Future, the country’s secondlargest retailer, whose businesses were hit hard by the Covid pandemic.
Meanwhile, a key part of a Singapore tribunal’s order is set to be the mainstay of Amazon’s legal defence against allegations by directors of FRL that the e-commerce giant hid facts to secure antitrust approval for a 2019 deal to buy a stake in a Future Group company that gave it an indirect stake in FRL.
Earlier, Amazon had filed a plea with the SC to halt a meeting of the shareholders of FRL.