MUMBAI : The Supreme Court on Wednesday set aside a Delhi high court order that stayed the arbitral proceedings pertaining to Amazon and Future group, thereby directing resumption of the arbitral proceedings.
A bench led by Chief Justice N.V. Ramana also stated that the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) should hear the termination application filed by Future Group under section 32(2)(c) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act 1996 in priority to other matters and directed the tribunal to pass orders.
“Parties will approach the arbitration tribunal to resume arbitration proceedings on understanding that it will hear FRL’s termination application," Chief Justice Ramana said.
This follows a mutual agreement between Amazon and Future Group to appear before SIAC after the top court asked it to expedite the matter.
On 6 January, a division bench of Delhi high court had stayed proceedings in Singapore arbitration case between Amazon and Future Group, quashing a single judge’s ruling from the day before that declined to halt them.
SIAC halted the hearing, which was scheduled to be held during the first week of January.
Amazon’s special leave petition, which challenged the Delhi high court order staying the arbitration proceedings, was dismissed by the Supreme Court.
Amazon and Future Group have been involved in multi-forum litigation on the issue of FRL’s ₹24,713 crore merger deal with Reliance Retail Limited since the US e-commerce giant hauled it to SIAC in October 2020.
The top court on Monday urged both Amazon and Future Group to jointly request Delhi high court’s single bench to take up Amazon’s petition on enforcement of the emergency arbitrator’s award before SIAC.
The interim application on the enforcement application will be transmitted to the Delhi court as the hearing has already been initiated on Tuesday, Chief Justice Ramana said. The matter pertaining to the enforcement petition will be heard by Delhi high court on 12 April.
