Singapore Arbitration Tribunal dismisses FRL’s application seeking termination of proceedings  

Beleaguered Future Retail (FRL) said that its application before the Singapore Arbitration Tribunal for terminating proceedings initiated by US behemoth Amazon in view of the order passed by the Competition Commission of India (CCI) has been dismissed, as per an exchange filing on Wednesday late night.

The CCI dismissed Amazon’s appeal against its order dated December 17, 2021 wherein it kept its decision regarding approval granted to Amazon.com NV Holdings for investments in Future Coupons and also imposed a penalty worth Rs 202 crore on Amazon.

While the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) upheld CCI’s decision, it revised the penalty from Rs 202 crore to Rs 201 crore. This confirmed that Amazon obtained the approval of CCI by “misrepresentation,” the filing further noted.

Earlier this week, the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) reserved its order on Amazon’s petition against Bank of India’s plea to initiate insolvency resolution proceedings against debt-ridden Future Retail Limited (FRL).

Future and Amazon have been engaged in a legal tussle after the latter dragged the former into arbitration at the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) on October 2020. Amazon claimed that FRL violated their contract by entering into a deal for sale of assets to Reliance Retail on slump sale basis for Rs 24,713 crore.

Reliance deal fell through in April this year after lenders to FRL and other group companies rejected it. Before that, Reliance had taken over operations of Future stores after FRL failed to pay the rent.