Amazon may challenge Reliance Retail’s takeover of Future Retail’s 200 stores for missed lease payments.

Future Retail (FRL), which has close to 1,700 outlets in the country, had received termination notices for a large number of these stores because of huge dues.

On Saturday, the Future group firm had said that it would no longer have access to some stores.

Reliance Retail, which had transferred the leases of some of the Future group stores into its name and sublet them back to FRL, had taken possession of these stores as the latter could not pay the lease rentals.

This is likely to be challenged by Amazon, which has objected to the Rs 24,713-crore deal between Reliance and the Future group. Amazon says the deal went against a 2019 transaction between Future Coupons Pvt Ltd (FCPL) and the US e-commerce major.

The development came even as the Delhi High Court on Monday heard the dispute between the Future group and Amazon over the August 2020 deal with Reliance. Senior advocate Harish Salve appeared for the Future group.

The hearing will continue on Tuesday.

Meanwhile, Future group shares rallied on the news that Reliance Retail had taken possession of some of its stores and that both parties had extended the long stop date for the deal till September 30.

FRL zoomed 7.10 per cent to close at Rs 49.05, the Future Enterprises scrip gained almost 17 per cent to touch Rs 9.59 and Future Consumer rose around 5 per cent to Rs 7.19.

Long stop is a timeframe within which parties agree on which all conditions precedent for a transaction need to be fulfilled and the transaction completed.

FRL, which suffered a loss of Rs 4,445 crore in the last four quarters, has been unable to repay around Rs 2,500 crore to its lenders under a one-time restructuring scheme, resulting in the account being classified as a non-performing asset.

The lenders are looking at various options that include the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code and a 2019 circular from the RBI for resolution of the FRL debt.