Amazon has offered financial assistance to the loss making Future Retail Ltd (FRL), even as both the parties slug it out over a Rs 24,713 crore deal with Reliance Retail.

The US retail giant has now written to the independent directors of FRL, expressing this willingness, though it was quick to remind FRL that it should not proceed with any asset sales without its consent.

“We reiterate our willingness and ability to assist FRL in addressing any financial concerns of FRL, within the framework of the agreements, including the solution proposed in the term sheet between Samara Capital, and FRL, which contemplated an infusion of Rs 7,000 crore in FRL,’’ Amazon said in the letter Wednesday.

Earlier, there were reports that the private equity firm Samara Capital which is backed by Amazon had signed a non-binding term sheet with FRL for investing Rs 7,000 crore into the latter. This was however, before the deal with Reliance Retail in August 2020.

Amazon’s fresh offer coincides with the submissions made its counsel Gopal Subramanium in the courts that it wants to help FRL and that it don’t want the firm to go down. At the hearing in the Supreme Court recently, he had reiterated that Amazon has been offering to help the Future group.

However, Amazon also said in the letter that it is barred from “directly or indirectly taking any steps to transfer, dispose, alienate or encumber FRL’s retail assets’’, without its consent. This comes amid reports that the Future group is planning to sell its small format stores.

Recently, the US retail giant had filed an appeal in the Supreme Court against an interim order given by the Delhi High Court that had stayed the arbitration proceedings between the two parties. The apex court is set to hear the dispute between them at its next hearing on February 1.

Amazon also approached the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) against the December order of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) which suspended the 2019 deal with Future Coupons Pvt Ltd (FCPL).

The CCI while suspending this deal, said that there was a `deliberate design on the part of Amazon to suppress the actual scope and purpose of its proposal in 2019.

The CCI had said that its approval for the transaction which was given in November 2019, will remain in `abeyance’. It had said that Amazon will have to make another application within a period of 60 days from the receipt of the order.