Future Retail rallies 8% as company gets relief from Delhi HC bench in RIL deal case

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Shares of Future Retail (FRL) advanced over 8% in Tuesday’s morning trade after the company on Monday said the Delhi High Court has ruled that statutory authorities cannot be restrained from acting in accordance with law and stayed a previous order on status quo of its Rs 24,713 crore deal with Reliance.

The scrip traded 8.27% up at Rs 79.25 at around 9.50 am (IST), while the benchmark BSE Sensex traded 0.12% up at 51,408 at around the same time. On the other hand, Reliance Industries was up 1.37% at 1978.30 at around the same time.

Updating stock exchanges about the court ruling, FRL said a Division Bench comprising Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Jyoti Singh has stayed the operation and effect of order passed by single Judge J R Midha on February 2.

“…inter alia, for the prima facie reason that the company is not a party to the Shareholders Agreement dated August 22, 2019 executed between Amazon, Future Coupons Private Limited and the Promoters of FRL, under which arbitration was initiated by Amazon in Singapore,” FRL said.

“Court also observed that statutory authorities cannot be restrained in private litigation from acting in accordance with law,” the filing said.

The high court’s order came over an urgent petition moved by FRL after the single-member bench directed maintaining status-quo over Future’s deal with Reliance. The scheme of arrangement has already received approval from CCI and no objection from SEBI and bourses, following which it had approached NCLT Mumbai on January 26, 2021.

Interestingly, market regulator SEBI had barred Kishore Biyani and certain other promoters of Future Retail Ltd last week from the securities market for one year for indulging in insider trading in the shares of the company.

However, FRL had stated that the one-year ban will have “no impact” on the deal with Reliance Industries. Kishore Biyani, some other promoters and Future Corporate Resources Pvt Ltd (FCRPL) have also appealed against the order passed by the market regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).

Last month, Amazon had approached the Delhi High Court seeking enforcement of the interim order of the Emergency Arbitrator (EA) at the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) that had restrained FRL from going ahead with the deal with Reliance.

Justice Midha had directed FRL and other parties to maintain status quo till pronouncement of the reserved order.

(With inputs from PTI)