After a two-year legal scuffle with the Indian retail company Future Retail, Amazon.com announced plans to file criminal charges against Kishore Biyani-led Future Retail this week to disrupt a 2019 deal and transfer its assets to rival Reliance Industries.
Due to contractual violations, Future Retail’s sale to rival company Reliance has been prohibited since 2020 by the e-comm giant.
As a result, Amazon.com is now preparing to file criminal charges against Future, which could very well be the last attempt by Amazon to halt the Future-Reliance deal.
Amazon and Future Duel
E-commerce giant Amazon filed charges against Biyani-led Future Retail in 2020 for breach of contract.
As a result, Future’s sale of assets to Amazon’s major retail competitor RIL was halted and is still stalled.
After Reliance Retail, India’s second largest retailer denies any charges filed by Amazon and had previously stated that Amazon was incorrectly interfering with its business.
Indian courts and a Singapore arbitrator back Amazon’s position despite this.
Amazon plans to file criminal charges against Future in a New Delhi court and urges the court to investigate the matter thoroughly.
Reports from Reuters state that two sources informed them that the criminal case could be filed in the Delhi court as early as this week.
According to the source, one of the sources said Amazon will allege Future concealed information during legal proceedings and transferred leases of its stores to rival Reliance even though an arbitrator in Singapore had blocked any transfer or disposal of assets in the ongoing dispute.
Earlier this week, Reliance began to take over 500 Future Retail stores and rebrand them as its own retail outlets, Reliance Retail, because Future had fallen behind on its rental payments.
However, RIL did not lay off Future Retail’s employees.