The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) will hear on February 14 Amazon’s plea against the Competition Commission of India (CCI) order that had suspended the approval for its 2019 deal with Future Coupons Pvt Ltd (FCPL).

In January, Amazon had filed an appeal with the NCLAT against the December 17, 2021 order of the CCI.

The competition watchdog had suspended the Amazon-FCPL deal saying the US e-commerce giant had suppressed information while seeking clearances for the transaction. The CCI had said the approval for the Amazon-Future Coupons transaction “shall remain in abeyance”, even as it gave Amazon 60 days to make a fresh application.

A three-member bench on Monday gave a direction to list on February 14 Amazon’s plea to pass an interim order and stay the CII order till it finally decides on the matter.

“The registry is directed to list on February 14 for hearing,” a PTI report quoting the NCLAT bench said.

The appellate tribunal also directed to list the appeals filed by the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) and All India Consumer Product Distributors Federation on the same date.

During the proceedings, Gopal Subramaniam, who represented Amazon, requested the tribunal to put a stay on the order passed by the CCI until it hears the appeal.

According to him, the 60-day window granted by the CCI for complying with its order was coming to an end.

However, Harish Salve, appearing for the Future Group firm, opposed the motion. Salve said the matter was fixed on Monday only for directions.

Responding to the request of the CCI counsel that it should start a day-to-day final hearing on the matter, the appellate tribunal said the matter would be taken up on February 14 only for hearing on the application and would fix the matter for hearing later.

Both Amazon and the Future group have been locked in a bitter legal tussle after the former dragged Future Group to arbitration at the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) in October 2020, arguing that Future Retail Ltd (FRL) had violated their 2019 contract by entering into a Rs 24,713 crore deal with Reliance Retail.

Recently, FRL had also approached the SIAC to stay the arbitration proceedings following the CCI order. However, the SIAC had rejected the plea.