Future Group Vs Amazon: Both Sides Agree To A Dialogue
Amazon has offered to engage with Future Group to try and resolve the legal dispute between the estranged partners.
Amazon.com NV Investment Holdings LLC has offered to engage with the Future Group to try and resolve the legal dispute between the estranged partners.
Amazon's counsel Gopal Subramanium told the Supreme Court bench he was concerned with the broader impact of a stay on the arbitration proceedings, as the same can happen to any other company in India which has a foreign direct investment.
In October 2020, an emergency arbitrator‘s order had directed a status quo on the transaction between the Future Group and Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd. Since then, the legal dispute between Amazon and Future Group has travelled to multiple legal forums in the last two years, with no end in sight.
‘’Oh, what a tangled web we have weaved," Senior Advocate Harish Salve said, while summarising the journey today before the Supreme Court.
Salve, on behalf of the Future Group, told the court that they do not have a problem in having a conversation as no one was winning in this fight and that he himself would be willing to put in a word. "Let me assure you, no one is winning in this battle."
The Chief Justice of India NV Ramana observed that the court is willing to hear the legal dispute, but if the parties are eager to talk, they should engage in a conversation.
If you want to fight legally, you fight. We only think if you are saying no one is winning, then you speak.Chief Justice of India NV Ramana
For lawyers, this is a bonanza, but at some point things must end, Subramanium told the bench at the end of the hearing.
Amazon also assured the bench that it would not be filing any criminal case against Future Group. The response was in the context of certain media reports of potential criminal proceedings after Reliance Industries Ltd. took over 200 stores owned by Future Group.
The bench will now take up the case next on March 15.