NCLT gives Future Retail go ahead to convene meetings to approve the sale of retail assets to Reliance

By

Isabelle Crossley

Published
Mar 2, 2022

The National Company Law Tribunal has given Future Retail the go ahead to convene meetings with its shareholders and creditors to approve its plan to sell its retail assets to Reliance Retail. 

The NCLT’s ruling on February 28 marks the ninth step in a 15 step process required for the Future Retail and Reliance Retail to go through, ET Bureau reported. The NCLT had adjourned the matter to Monday last week following hours of arguments between both sides legal teams at the bench. The case at the NCLT has taken a year to be resolved.
 
Future Retail had requested the NCLT’s approval to sell its retail assets in what would be a Rs 24,000 crore transaction but the case dragged on as Amazon objected to the deal and argued that it would violate its own contractural arrangements with the business. Amazon took the matter to the NCLT as well as several other Indian courts and an arbitration centre in Singapore.

“Now the meetings of the shareholders and creditors will happen,” said Future Retail’s lawyer at the NCLT Hemant Sethi, the Economic Times reported. “The chairperson of the meetings will file reports of the meetings to the NCLT. At a later stage, a petition will be filed for sanctioning the scheme.”