Supreme Court's verdict to uphold Singapore order, a big win for Amazon
Supreme Court has ruled in favour of Amazon regarding dispute with Future Retail.
On Friday, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of Amazon by restraining Future Retail from continuing with its merger deal with Reliance Retail. The court has found the Emergency Arbitrator's interim award to be valid and capable of being enforced under India law.
Founding Partner, Arista Chambers, Pramod Nair says, "The Supreme Court has allowed the enforcement of emergency arbitrator's order under section 17 of the Indian arbitration law. The Arbitration Act allows a party to challenge any interim reliefs granted under Section 17. We'll have to await the Supreme Court's judgment to see if that possibility is open to Future Retail.
Meanwhile, the SC bench stated, "We will decide whether EA award falls under section 17 (1) (which deals with interim award by arbitral tribunal) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act. And if yes, then whether it can be enforced under section 17 (2) (of the Act)."
As per the provisions of the Act deal with the interim measures ordered by an arbitral tribunal and section 17 (1), "Unless otherwise agreed by the parties, the arbitral tribunal may, at the request of a party, order a party to take any interim measure of protection as the arbitral tribunal may consider necessary in respect of the subject-matter of the dispute."
As per the reports of Times Of India, the first plea had been filed by Amazon before the high court (single judge) for enforcement of the October 25, 2020, EA award by Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) to restrain FRL from going ahead with the deal with Reliance Retail.
The high court division bench had said, "it was staying the single-judge order as FRL was not a party to the share subscription agreement (SSA) between Amazon and FCPL and the US firm was not a party to the FRL-Reliance deal."
However, TOI reports that FRL had claimed in its appeal that if the February 2 order was not stayed it “would be an absolute disaster" for it as the proceedings before the NCLT for approving the amalgamation scheme have been put on hold.
