Future Retail tells the bourses that not every stage of the Amazon proceedings would be ‘material event for disclosure’

• Future Retail has informed the bourses that with Amazon taking the case back to Singapore court, not every stage of the proceeding is a “material event for disclosure”.
• Future Retail also hinted that it wasn’t going to give in to Amazon’s media tactics.
• The statement from Future Retail has come in after the National Stock Exchange warned the company that it could face regulatory scrutiny for not putting out market disclosures on time.

Kishore Biyani’s Future Retail (FRL), which is embroiled in a legal battle with e-commerce giant Amazon over its deal with Reliance Retail, has told the bourses that with Amazon taking the case back to Singapore court, not every stage of the proceeding is “material event for disclosure”.

In a statement to the stock exchange, the company wrote, “As you are aware, Amazon has initiated arbitration proceedings in Singapore, which the company believes is without merit and without jurisdiction.”

Future Retail also hinted that it wasn’t going to give in to Amazon’s media tactics. “Every stage of the proceedings would not lend itself to being a material event for disclosure under Regulation 30 of the LODR Regulations,” the statement said.

FRL added that it was making this disclosure “out of abundant caution” since Amazon’s media strategy was to have “every development reported and converted into a line of communication with stock exchanges.”

This statement from Future Retail has come in after the National Stock Exchange (NSE) warned the company on November 26 that it could face regulatory scrutiny for not putting out market disclosures on time. NSE’s warning came after Amazon complained that Future Group was misleading the public with incorrect market disclosures.

On November 25, the Singapore International Arbitration Centre had rejected Future’s plea not to be included in the arbitration.

The legal battle began when on October 25, global e-commerce giant Amazon got a stay order on the Future Retail and Reliance deal from a Singapore arbitrator and had written to BSE and SEBI to uphold the decision. Amazon had sent a legal notice to Future Coupons over Future Group’s ₹25,000 crore deal with Reliance. Amazon had said that it was denied the Rights of First Refusal for the deal with Future Group.

The Singapore court had ruled in favour of Amazon and passed an interim order that put the RIL-Future deal on hold.

Since then, the matter is subjudice in the Delhi High Court.

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