The Mumbai bench of the National Company Law Tribunal on Monday passed an order allowing the Future Group to convene meeting of its shareholder and creditors to seek their approval for its proposed ₹ 24,713 crores deal with Reliance Industries Ltd.
A final order, however, is awaited in the matter. The schedule of the meetings of shareholders and creditors will be communicated in due course of time, the company said in an exchange filing.
Last year, NCLT had stayed the shareholders and creditors meeting stating that no meeting will be conducted until further orders from the tribunal.
This was after the top court in September 2021 asked regulatory authorities like NCLT, Competition Commission of India and Securities and Exchange Board of India to not pass any final order on the transaction, since the matter was pending from two years.
The approval for the meeting comes after the apex court on 15 February granted liberty to Future Group to move the Delhi High Court for seeking nod to proceed with the NCLT permission of going ahead with the proposed merger with Reliance Industries.
On September 28, the tribunal had allowed creditors and shareholders to hold a meeting over the deal.
At the same time in September, in a last-ditch effort to stall the meeting, Amazon had filed a petition objecting to such a meeting by the creditors and shareholders of Future Group. This petition has been dismissed by the court on Monday.
The ongoing legal tussle between Future Group and Amazon is over the sale of Future’s retail assets to Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries Ltd. The proposed asset sale deal is worth ₹ 24,713 crores entered between Future and Reliance in August 2020.
Essentially, Reliance Industries arm --Reliance Retail Ventures Limited (RRVL) had proposed a deal to acquire the entire retail, wholesale, logistics and warehousing businesses of the Future Group.
The deal is being opposed by Amazon.com NV Investment Holdings LLC on the asset sale arguing that its investment of ₹1,400 crores in Future Coupons, which is one of promoters of Future Retail, allows it block asset sale to Amazon's competitors.
