The Supreme Court has agreed to hear a fresh petition from Future Retail (FRL) seeking quashing of lenders’ letters threatening initiation of insolvency proceedings. The plea cited its live deal with Reliance Retail for sale of assets for nearly £2.5 billion, which is virtually stalled because of cross-country litigations initiated by American multi-national Amazon.
When senior advocate Mukul Rohatgi sought urgent hearing, a bench headed by CJI N V Ramana said a bench headed by him had already reserved its orders on a number of issues relating to the litigation between Future Coupons, Future Retail and Amazon over the sale of retail assets to Reliance Retail.
“We will have to hear arguments from Amazon apart from the banks which have sent the insolvency notice,” the CJI said and asked Future Retail to serve a copy of the petition on Amazon. Future Retail has told the SC that since the deal (with Reliance Retail) has been stalled because of events beyond its control (Amazon invoking arbitration in which Future Retail is a non-signatory party), it had not been able to monetise its ‘small-format stores’ and other assets. It requested the SC to direct the lenders to withdraw their notices.
