Supreme Court notice to CCI, Future Group on Amazon's plea challenging NCLAT order

The Supreme Court on Monday issued notices to the Future Group and the Competition Commission of India on a plea by Amazon against the June 13 NCLAT's order which upheld the decision to keep share subscription agreement (SSA) between Amazon and Future Coupons Pvt Ltd (FCPL) in abeyance.

A bench of Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and Bela M Trivedi sought a response in the matter from the Future Group as well as the CCI and put the matter for detailed consideration on September 19.

The court also issued notice to the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT), which had opposed the Amazon's deal with the Future Group.

Also Read — NCLAT rejects Amazon's plea against CCI order suspending its Future Coupons deal

The court asked the parties to file a short note within a week.

Amazon had on July 28 approached the top court against the order by the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal, which had upheld CCI's decision to suspend approval for Amazon's investments.

While asking Amazon to pay the penalty of Rs 200 crore within 45 days, the NCLAT had backed the CCI's December 2021 findings that Amazon didn't make full disclosures in its 2019 deal and had suppressed information in seeking clearances for the transaction back then.

As the 2019 deal was on, the Future Group in August 2020 decided to sell its retails assets to Reliance Retail for Rs 24,713 crore to repay its debt. However, Amazon had opposed FRL's (Future Retail) deal and accused Future Group of breach of contract on the basis of its 2019 transaction whereby it had acquired the 49 per cent stake in FCPL, which owns 10 per cent in FRL.

However, the FRL-Reliance Retail deal has been called off by Reliance Industries. In February, Reliance had already taken over 947 stores of FRL, which it had sub-leased to it.