Future Retail seeks early hearing of appeal in SC against HC order in merger deal with Reliance

The high court had said that in the absence of any stay from the apex court, it has no option but to enforce the order passed by its single judge on March 18

The Supreme Court on Friday agreed for an early hearing of the Future group’s appeals against the Delhi High Court’s single judge’s order, which had in February restrained it from going ahead with its Rs 24,713-crore merger deal with Reliance Retail on a plea by Amazon.

“We will look into the file and give a date,” Chief Justice N V Ramana told Future Retail's lawyer Harish Salve, who sought an early date, saying that the single judge had given a slew of directions (on February 2 and March 18) that went beyond the Singapore International Arbitration Centre’s emergency arbitrator’s (EA) last year’s order.

The HC order if implemented will have far-reaching consequences, Salve said, adding that the FRL's appeal should be heard on September 9 as the matter before the High Court was listed on September 16.

Senior counsel Mukul Rohatgi, also appearing for the Future group, supported Salve, while seeking early date of hearing on September 9 on the grounds that the HC would go ahead with the enforcement of its order in case stay is not granted in its favour by the top court.

He also said that the entire assets have been ordered to be attached by the High Court and the contempt proceedings would be initiated if the Future group and others do not get a stay.

Notably, the development comes after the Supreme Court's August 6 order by which Amazon scored a major victory with the apex court upholding EA award restraining FRL from going ahead with its deal with the Mukesh Ambani firm.

It had also revived the single judge’s order that had also held FRL group chairman Kishore Biyani and others guilty for going ahead with the deal and had issued show cause notice to him and other directors of the Future Group as to why they should not be sent to prison, as sought by Amazon.

Besides, the single judge had also directed the FRL to approach regulatory authorities to recall all approvals granted to the Future-Reliance Retail deal and to deposit 20 lakh as cost for violating the Singapore's Emergency Arbitrator's interim stay order of October 25, 2020. The judge had also asked for attaching the assets of Biyani and other directors and had asked them to appear before it.

Challenging the single judge’s February 2 and March 18 orders, the Future group and Biyanis in their appeals before the apex court said that the single judge’s directions were not only beyond the EA’s order but also beyond the reliefs sought by Amazon in its enforcement petition.

The fight between Future Group and Amazon has been going on since October 25, 2020 when the Singapore's Emergency Arbitrator passed an interim order restraining FRL from going ahead with its deal with Reliance Retail. Amazon, which acquired an indirect minority stake in Future Group in 2019 has alleged that Future's sale of its retail, wholesale, logistics and warehousing businesses to Reliance Retail breached its pre-existing contract, which included a right of the first offer and a non-compete clause.