Amazon on Sunday won an interim award against the Future group’s sale of its retail business to Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) after a Singapore-based single judge arbitration panel put the deal on hold.

It may be recalled that the US-based retail giant had dragged the Future group to arbitration after it agreed to sell businesses to Reliance Retail.

Earlier, this month Amazon had slapped a legal notice on the group, alleging that the asset sale to Reliance violated an contractual agreement with the e-commerce giant. It then approached the Singapore International Arbitration Centre saying that the Future group breached the contract.

Last year, Amazon had bought a 49 per cent stake in one of Future’s unlisted firms, Future Coupons Ltd, with the right to buy into flagship Future Retail after a period between 3 years and 10 years. Future Coupons owns 7.3 per cent stake in Future Retail.

Passing an interim award in favour of Amazon, V. K. Rajah — the sole arbitrator in the arbitration matter — has asked the Future group to put the deal on hold and said that the deal cannot go through until it finally decides the matter.

A PTI report quoting an Amazon spokesperson said that the arbitration panel has granted the reliefs sought by it and expect an expeditious conclusion of the arbitration process.

“We welcome the award of the Emergency Arbitrator. We are grateful for the order which grants all the reliefs that were sought. We remain committed to an expeditious conclusion of the arbitration process," the Amazon spokesperson said.

Late last month, Reliance Industries Ltd had announced that it is acquiring the retail and wholesale business and the logistics and warehousing division from Future Group for a lump sum consideration of Rs 24,713 crore.

The acquisition was to bring retail formats like Big Bazaar, fbb, Foodhall, Easyday, Nilgiris, Central and Brand Factory into the Reliance fold.

The Future group had announced that the transaction will initially see it merging close to five companies carrying the formats or the businesses that will go into the Reliance fold into Future Enterprises Ltd (FEL). As per the announcement, the retail and wholesale undertaking of the group will be transferred to Retail and Fashion Lifestyle Ltd (RRFLL), while the logistics & warehousing undertaking will go to Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd (RRVL), which is a RIL subsidiary.

RIL had said that RRFLL, a subsidiary of RRVL will acquire 6.09 per cent of the post merger equity of FEL and it will invest another Rs 400 crore in preferential issue of equity warrants, which after conversion will see its stake going up by another 7.05 per cent in the company.

Shares of Future Enterprises had ended with gains of almost five per cent on Friday. The scrip ended had settled at Rs 10.03 — marking a rise of 4.48 per cent over its last close. The Future Retail share too finished higher by 3.39 per cent. These counters may come under pressure on the news of Amazon winning interim award against the Future group on Monday.