Future Retail Ltd (FRL) has said the market regulator’s order to bar group CEO Kishore Biyani and other entities from accessing the securities market for a year will have “no impact’’ on the Rs 24,713 crore-deal with Reliance Retail.
It added that Biyani, some other promoters and Future Corporate Resources Pvt Ltd (FCRPL), a promoter entity, plan to appeal against the order passed by Sebi.
In a separate statement, FCRPL said the Sebi order “has taken care to exclude dealings in securities under any impending scheme of arrangement”.
“Therefore, Sebi would not pose a hurdle to the ongoing scheme of arrangement with the Reliance group,” it added.
FCRPL maintained that the Sebi order is “untenable as it treats a well-anticipated and publicly well-known impending re-organisation of the home furnishing businesses that the Future Group effected in 2017 to be unpublished information”.
“The order will be challenged in exercise of the statutory right to appeal,” it disclosed.
Division bench hearing
In an hearing before a division bench of the Delhi High Court, senior advocate for FRL Harish Salve said Amazon was opposing the deal with Reliance as the latter was a competitor.
It may be recalled that FRL has appealed against an February 2 interim order given by Justice J R Midha of the Delhi High Court who had directed the company to maintain status quo in relation to the deal with Reliance Retail.
It also directed all other authorities to maintain status quo in relation to the matters which are in violation of an emergency award given in October last year and to file status report with regard to the present status within 10 days.