NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Indian stock exchanges on Wednesday continued the $ 3.4 billion deal with Future Group to sell its retail assets, a step closer to closing a deal that binds its bonds with its business partner Amazon.com Inc.
Future and Amazon were caught up in legal disputes over the Indian group’s deal with Reliance Industries in August. The US e-commerce giant claims that the agreement has broken some of its existing contracts with Future.
In late-night notices, Indian exchanges said they had no objection or negative observation about the deal, saying they came to the decision after communicating with the Indian market regulator, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). has.
SEBI has advised Future to share various details of the ongoing lawsuits with Amazon as it approaches the Indian National Company Law Tribunal, which must also sign the agreement, Bombay said in a statement.
SEBI did not make its comments public.
Reliance and Future did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The notices will be a setback for Amazon, which has repeatedly written letters to SEBI and stock exchanges in recent weeks to suspend the deal.
Amazon also dragged Future before an arbitrator in Singapore, who accepted an interim order in October and said the Reliance agreement should be terminated. Future says the order is not binding on it.
After the nods to the exchanges, Amazon said in a statement that it would continue to pursue legal remedies to enforce its rights, pointing out that the approvals are subject to the outcome of the ongoing arbitration process and other lawsuits.
The outcome of the dispute over Future, Reliance and Amazon is seen as shaping India’s retail landscape, especially in deciding who is expected to be the leader of a grocery market by $ 2024 billion by 2024.
Reporting by Aditya Kalra in New Delhi; Edited by Euan Rocha and Steve Orlofsky