In a great win for Amazon, India’s top court on Friday juged in the favour of e-commerce giant in its tussle with Future Retail. A bench led by Justice R.F. Nariman in the supreme court held that the emergency arbitrator award passed under the Singapore International Artibration Centre (SIAC) is enforceable in Indian law.
The supreme court said, “Emergency arbitrators award holds good under section 17(1) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act and single judges order for such award cannot be appealed under Section 17(2)”.
This comes as a major setback for the Rs 24,713 crore merger deal of Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Retail with the Kishore Biyani-led Future Group, to which the e-commerce giant had objected in multiple courts.
Since then, Amazon.com and Future Retail have been locked in a bitter legal dispute over the deal.
Amazon had argued that the Singapores Emergency Arbitrator (EA) award, which restrained Reliance-FRL from going ahead with merger, was valid and enforceable. Amazon had moved the apex court challenging the Delhi High court’s division bench order which had given a green signal to the Reliance-FRL deal.
Contending there was no notion of EA under the Indian law on arbitration and conciliation, Senior advocate Harish Salve, representing FRL, also said there was no arbitration agreement to this effect. He emphasized there was no provision for EA under the Indian law.
Meanwhile, advocate Gopal Subramanium, representating Amazon told the bench that the Biryanis of the Future Group had settled with it to enter into certain agreements and have been bound by the EA, which restrains FRL from proceeding with its merger deal with Reliance Retail.
A Division Bench on February 8, had held the single-judge direction to FRL and various statutory authorities to maintain the status quo on the deal.
