The announcement is the latest in a two-year-long battle between Reliance and Future — that run two of India’s largest retail chains — and e-commerce giant Amazon, which has sought to block the deal.
Amazon has argued that Future Group has violated its contract by doing a deal with Reliance and earlier approached the Singapore arbitrator to halt the deal between the Indian firms. The ensuing legal battle delayed the completion of the deal, during which Future Group’s debt piled up and earned a once-iconic Indian company a “non-performing asset” evaluation from lenders.
Without secured lenders’s backing, Future Group, which has more than $4 billion in debt on its books, cannot proceed with the deal, and now is unlikely to survive. Last year, the National Company Law Tribunal, a quasi-judicial body in India that adjudicates issues relating to Indian companies, permitted Future Retail and other group companies to convene meetings of shareholders and creditors to take a vote on the proposed acquisition to Reliance Industries.
