The Future Retail (FRL) told the Supreme Court that it is ‘hanging by a thread’ while the battle of power and ownership between Amazon and Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) over the company is still going on. The FRL told the court that for £140 million, which is the worth of the Amazon-Future disputed deal, the US-based e commerce giant has successfully destroyed a £2.6 billion company.
“Our bank accounts are frozen and I can’t even pay rent. Due to the second wave of Covid infection and other associated issues, the retail sector has taken a solid knock. Amazon wanted to destroy us, they have destroyed us,” senior advocate Harish Salve appearing for Future retail submitted before the court.
“If reliance doesn’t extend our scheme after three months then what will we do? We are on oxygen now. We have only 374 stores and over 800 have shut down due to non-payment of rent,” he further read.
This comes after an out-of-court settlement talk for the dispute between Amazon and Future Retail failed last month and Reliance took over hundreds of Future Retail stores on unpaid rents mounting up to thousands of millions.
Senior advocate Gopal Subramanium appearing for Amazon said, “As far as the resumption of arbitration is considered, we both want that. There is a sudden handover of assets which should not be done. The assets have to remain in FRL. We pray for restraining from any alienation of assets and should remain with FRL should not be magically switched to any party.”
Subramanium also said, “The record shows us that in their annual accounts for 2021, in all their annual returns they say they have enough to pay their rentals. There is not a piece of slightly compelling evidence that they are not doing well. I would request this in the interest of justice.”
