The Delhi High Court on Friday refused to grant any interim relief as pleaded by Amazon to prevent Future Retail from seeking further regulatory clearances for the proposed sale of its assets to Reliance Retail.
Justice JR Midha said “it will not be proper” to grant any relief till the hearings were concluded and he would be able to form a view on the case. In the event any approvals are given by a regulatory authority, the court can reverse it, the judge said, adding: “Courts always have that power, right.”
Arguments will continue Monday.
The judge’s observation came after senior lawyer Gopal Subramanium, appearing for Amazon, requested the court to “consider certain protective orders” in favour of the ecommerce company.
Amazon had got an interim order from the Singapore International Arbitration Centre that put the Future-Reliance deal on hold until it gave a final ruling on the company’s plea opposing the transaction. The company approached the high court seeking to enforce the interim order of the arbitration centre and restrain the Future Group from filing any application to complete the deal.
On Thursday, Future Retail wrote to the Singapore body, asking it to “vacate” the company from the October emergency order.
“Why should a document or an instrument left outstanding to be misused by Amazon,” Darius Khambata, senior counsel representing Future Retail, told the court during the hearing on Friday.
Lawyer Amit Sibal, representing Amazon, urged the court for an interim relief so that Future Retail didn’t take any further regulatory steps in the proposed deal.
“They shouldn’t render it infructuous in the meantime as they are taking steps daily,” Sibal told the court. “We served them with the petition on Monday the 25th (January) and on 26th (January) they took precipitous steps to file even on Republic Day with the NCLT (seeking approval to the merger scheme),” he told the court.
Source: Economic Times