Amazon moves HC to block Future sale

Amazon.com NV Investment Holdings LLC has moved the Delhi High Court seeking enforcement of an arbitration award to stay sale of Future Retail Ltd to a subsidiary of Reliance Industries Ltd.

The original award was given by the Singapore International Arbitration Centre in October last year.

The fresh plea comes after the Securities and Exchange Board of India reportedly gave a go-ahead to the deal. Soon after the arbitration award, Amazon had written to Indian regulators to bar the sale.

However, when the case reached the court, the judge allowed Amazon to approach regulators on the issues, but did not give any direction to SEBI on how to proceed with the request.

A single-judge bench of the court had also prima facie held the Singapore award was not without jurisdiction.

This finding of the singlejudge bench purportedly forms the basis for the e-commerce company to now seek enforcement of the Singapore arbitration award and this plea is expected to be heard on Jan 28.

To be sure, Amazon had also appealed against this same single judge bench order that remains pending before a division bench of the high court.

The appeal was on other aspects of the order starting with whether or not Future Group’s initial suit could have been entertained by the high court. This appeal is scheduled to be heard on February 12.