India's Future Retail files new case against Amazon

INDIA's Future Retail has filed a new case against the US giant Amazon in the country's top court.

It is part of the latest efforts by the Indian retailer to seek clearance for its $3.4 billion retail assets sale. Amazon has challenged the deal.

This month, India's Supreme Court ruled that an interim decision by a Singapore arbitrator in October 2020 that put its deal with Reliance Industries on hold - following Amazon's complaint - was valid in India.

The Supreme Court order was a big blow to Future Retail.

The top court had also said Future could not appeal a lower court's decision against it. The retailer is now asking the top court to hear the challenge, people familiar with the case said.

In its over 6,000-page filing, Future has argued that if the deal with Reliance doesn't go through, it would cause "unimaginable" damage to the group, including possible job losses for 35,575 employees, and put at risk roughly Rs 280bn ($3.81bn) in bank loans and debentures.

"There is extreme urgency to hear this petition," Future counsel Yugandhara Pawar Jha said in the Supreme Court filing, which is not public.

Amazon and Future spokespersons did not respond to requests for comment.

Amazon has for months been locked in a dispute with Future, and accuses the Indian firm of violating contracts when it sold its retail assets to market leader Reliance last year. Future denies any wrongdoing.

The outcome of the tussle involving two of the world’s richest men, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos and Reliance’s Mukesh Ambani, is seen as reshaping India’s pandemic-hit shopping sector and deciding whether Amazon can blunt Reliance's dominance of the country's nearly trillion-dollar retail market.

The dispute started after Future, India's second-largest retailer, with more than 1,700 stores, including popular Big Bazaar supermarkets, entered a deal last year to sell its retail businesses to Reliance after Covid-19 hit its operations hard.