Did not hide any facts related to future deal, Amazon tells CCI : Tech News

Amazon India has told the Competition Commission of India () that it did not hide any fact related to its deal with Future Group and that its investment in Future Coupons was compliant with foreign investment laws, people aware of the development said.

The Indian arm of the US ecommerce major had a hearing with the antitrust regulator on Monday where its senior officials answered queries from CCI on the Future deal, a person aware of the matter told ET.

“They reiterated that if the deal is scrapped, it will be anti-competitive and will benefit rivals here (without naming Reliance Industries that has signed a deal to buy Future Retail).”

This comes after the Delhi High Court last month nudged CCI to move ahead with the case and dispose of the matter.

As ET reported last month, the regulator had made it clear that it will proceed on the matter with available information on record if any of the parties do not avail of the opportunity to present their case.

Emails sent to Amazon India spokesperson and CCI did not elicit any response till press time Tuesday.

Amazon India had earlier asked CCI to revoke the nod it gave to the Rs 24,713-crore Reliance-Future Deal.

In August, ET reported that it had made a similar request to stock market regulator Sebi also, seeking the withdrawal of its conditional approval to the proposed buyout of retail assets of the Future Group by Reliance Industries, intensifying its efforts to stall the highly contested deal.

In August last year, Reliance Retail Ventures Limited (RRVL), a subsidiary of RIL, had announced that it had agreed to buy Future Group’s retail businesses across apparel, lifestyle, and grocery segments to bolster its presence in the Indian retail market. The deal also included the purchase of Future Group’s wholesale and supply chain business.

The ambitious proposal was also aimed at enabling RIL’s new commerce venture JioMart to leverage Future Group’s retail assets and also deliver grocery and other essentials to online consumers.

Amazon objected to the deal citing prior commitments made by Future Group to the US major, with the origin of the dispute going back to Amazon’s investment of Rs 1,431 crore in Future Coupons, which held about 10% stake in the flagship Future Retail, in August 2019.

As a part of that deal, Future Group promoter Kishore Biyani had also entered into a restriction on transfer of shares to specified persons and right of first offer of shares (ROFO) to Amazon, according to regulatory filings made by Future Retail at that time.

This list of “specified persons” included Reliance Industries, as ET has previously reported.

Amazon India competes with RIL directly in online grocery and the wider ecommerce space along with Walmart-owned Flipkart.

Following the announcement of the Future-RIL deal in August 2020, Amazon sent a legal notice to the Future Group in October and since then both parties have been fighting over the deal in Indian courts as well as at Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC).

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