Key Points:
- Bezos and Ambani battling over assets of Future Retail chain
- Ambani’s firm rejects Singapore court order that stalls deal
- Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries has agreed to buy Indian firm Future Group’s retail, wholesale, logistics and warehousing units for US$3.4 billion
- Amazon, which owns a stake in a Future unit, has accused the supermarket chain operator of violating a contract between the two sides by agreeing to the Reliance deal
Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries is in a race for dominating India’s money-spinning E-Commerce space with Jeff Bezos’s Amazon.com. The race is turning into a face-off, with both the sides battling over the assets of a supermarket chain that could lead them to their widespread ambitions of dominating the market.
Future Retail that has entered India cities and small towns by selling almost everything from grocery to fashion to electronics, the world’s two wealthiest men, Ambani and Jeff Bezos want the stores and warehouses of the Future Group.
Amazon, which owns a stake in a Future unit, and Reliance have in recent months made pacts with the Future Group, which they say are now being violated.
On Sunday, the conglomerate’s unit said in a statement that it intends to purchase Future Retail’s assets “without any delay”. This was after a Singapore arbitration court stopped Future from going ahead with the transaction.
Pushing Amazon to request an emergency hearing to delay, Reliance had agreed to buy Future’s retail, wholesale, logistics and warehousing units for US$3.4 billion in August.
“It was not a part of the Singapore proceedings and the matter ‘will have to be Tested’ under Indian Arbitration Law,”
said a statement on Monday.
“One can expect legal proceedings to be initiated in Indian courts from both”
Future and Amazon, said Amit Jajoo, a partner at law firm IndusLaw.
“If Future Group is stopped from going ahead with the sale, effectively it also stops Reliance.”
Amazon wants to block Reliance’s deal with the Future Group of bricks-and-mortar assets because it will make Ambani the market dominator of the world’s only-billion economy – India, open for foreign firms.
Representatives for Amazon declined to comment beyond its Sunday statement, which welcomed the Singapore order and agreed to a speedy arbitration.
