Amazon Files Plea In SC, Challenges NCLAT Order Upholding CCI’s Suspension Of Future Deal

Ecommerce giant Amazon has filed a petition before the Supreme Court challenging a recent order by National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT). In the order, it upheld the Competition Commission of India (CCI) ruling suspending the deal between the ecommerce giant and Future Coupons.

The Apex court is expected to list the matter for hearing next week, Mint reported.

In its order challenged by Amazon, NCLAT also upheld the INR 202 Cr penalty that was imposed on the ecommerce major by the CCI. Last December, CCI imposed the fine when it temporarily suspended the INR 1400 Cr Amazon-Future Coupons deal of 2019.

CCI said that Amazon had withheld important information from it in 2019 while it denied approval for the deal. Soon after, Amazon filed a petition with NCLAT to challenge the CCI decision in January 2022.

“This is a serious matter. This is for the first time in India that two years after approval has been granted and FDI has come in, the order has been kept in abeyance,” Senior counsel Gopal Subramaniam said on behalf of Amazon.

The tussle among the three parties- Amazon, Reliance Retail and Future Retail has been now going on for nearly two years, in one of India’s largest corporate battles. It must be mentioned that Amazon’s claim of blocking the INR 24713 Cr deal between Future Retail and Reliance Retail was based on the deal with Future Coupon.

Amazon said that since it has an indirect stake in Future Retail, the Kishore Biyani-led company can’t sell anything to Reliance. However, the deal was called off earlier this year as Future Retail could not secure stakeholders’ approval.

The story which has many turns and twists also saw Amazon accusing Future Retail’s independent directors for ‘facilitating’ the transfer of Future’s 835 retail stores to Reliance Retail. 

On the other hand, Future Retail also told the Supreme Court in April that for INR 1,400 Cr, which is the worth of the Amazon-Future disputed deal, the ecommerce giant has successfully destroyed an INR 26,000 Cr company.

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