CCI Approves Reliance- Future Group Deal Despite Amazon’s Plea
November 21, 2020
On Friday, the Competition commission of India (CCI) approved the acquisition of logistics, retail, wholesale and warehousing business of future Group by the Reliance Retail Ventures & the Reliance Retail Fashion Lifestyle (RRFL). The deal has resulted as a major setback for Amazon.
Back in August, Reliance Industries had announced an acquisition deal of Kishore Biyani’s Future Group for an amount of Rs24, 713 crore.
Contradicting the deal, Amazon had approached CCI and SEBI (Securities Exchange Board of India) and the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) in October, urging them to consider the negotiation and investigating for insider trading and breach of confidentiality.
The E-commerce giant had argued to have signed a deal with future Group, abstaining the Indian company from auctioning any shares of FRL (Future Retail Limited) any competitor apart from the US Company.
Future Retail later took Amazon to court to prevent it from sending restraining letters at regulators door. The Delhi High Court answering future Group’s plea asked Amazon to stop approaching regulatory authorities opposing the acquisition.
Now that the acquisition is finalized, the retail and wholesale undertaking of Future Group would be transferred to Reliance Retail Fashion Lifestyle, a wholly-owned subsidy of Reliance Retail Ventures limited (RRVL).
Reliance Retail will now have access to 1,800 Future Group’s FBB, Big Bazar, Easyday, Central and Food hall formats which are scattered in over 420 cities across India.
