RIL falls 2% as Reliance Retail-Future deal put on hold by arbitrator

Mumbai: Shares of Reliance Industries (RIL) dropped 2 per cent in Monday's session as clouds of doubts emerged over its deal to acquire Future Group’s businesses.

The Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) on Sunday passed an interim order asking Future Group to hold its sell-out plans to Reliance Group and wait for the final judgment on the plea filed by Amazon.

Amazon dragged Future group to arbitration after the Kishore Biyani group firm agreed to sell businesses to billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance. Amazon claimed that Future Group breached the contract under which the US online giant took an indirect stake in their retail business in 2019.

The global retail giant had agreed to purchase 49 per cent of one of Future’s unlisted firms in 2019, and has argued that despite being owning a stake in Future Coupons, it was not given the Right of First Refusal (RoFR) in the Reliance Retail Ventures (RRVL)-Future Group deal.

At 9:36 am, RIL shares were down 1.78 per cent at Rs 2,075, while benchmark Sensex traded 0.08 per cent lower at 40,654.43 points.

“RRVL has entered into the transaction for acquisition of assets and business of Future Retail under proper legal advice and the rights and obligations are fully enforceable under Indian Law,” RIL said in a late evening release on Sunday.

“RRVL intends to enforce its rights and complete the transaction in terms of the scheme and agreement with Future group without any delay,” it added.

On August 29, RIL had said that its unit RRVL was acquiring the retail & wholesale business and the logistics & warehousing business from the Kishor Biyani-promoted Future Group as going concerns on a slump sale basis for a lumpsum total consideration of Rs 24,713 crore.