Future Retail Limited on Tuesday told the Supreme Court to give it the permission to finalise its merger with Retail Retail as the failure of the deal will lead to 30,000 losing their jobs.
Future counsel Harish Salve made the submission before a bench headed by Chief Justice N.V.Ramana.
Salve argued that since the finalisation of the amalgamation process would take considerable time, Future Retail should proceed with the deal, pending the disposal of a batch of petitions.
During the course of argument, Salve pleaded Future Retail be allowed to secure and obtain the shareholders approval and necessary clearances from the CCI and NCLT.
Citing the pandemic, Salve said: “We are in this financially precarious situation…the Reliance deal is close to Rs 26,000 crore and Amazon’s stake is Rs 14,000 crore. Around 30,000 jobs will be saved if you put all this together,” Salve told the bench during the arguments.
Reliance has set a deadline of March 31, 2022 to complete the deal.
Salve said no prejudice would be caused to Amazon on account of the deal which would be subject to the final outcome of a batch of petitions in the apex court.
Senior advocate Gopal Subramanium appearing for Amazon said the latter was willing to offer whatever help FRL wants. In other words, Amazon was willing to provide financial help to FRL to tide itself over its difficulties.
Salve said that Amazon being a foreign entity cannot offer financial aid to Indian entities in multi brand retail business.
The bench after hearing the arguments reserved the verdict which is expected to be pronounced after a fortnight.
On September 9, the apex court had stayed a Delhi high court order directing the attachment of properties belonging to Future Retail. The court issued a show cause as to why the top executives of the company including chairman Kishore Biyani should not be jailed for “willful” violation of the Singapore arbitration order.
SC hearing
• Future counsel says if deal falls it will lead to 30,000 losing jobs
• Amalgamation will take time so exercise must start early
• Apex court reserves verdict
