Amazon slams Reliance takeover of Future stores as ‘fraud’ in India newspaper ads By Reuters

By Aditya Kalra and Abhirup Roy

NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Amazon.com Inc (NASDAQ:) has gone on the assault in its bitter dispute with two Indian retailers, accusing them of fraud in Indian newspaper advertisements on Tuesday after Reliance Industries immediately took over a lot of Future Retail shops.

Amazon has been contesting the deliberate $3.4 billion sale of Future Group’s retail property to Reliance, first introduced in 2020, and the case is at the moment earlier than the Indian Supreme Courtroom.

Reliance, India’s largest conglomerate and retailer run by the nation’s richest man, started taking on the prized actual property with utmost stealth on Feb.25 when its workers confirmed up at a lot of Future largest shops to imagine management, sources have informed Reuters.

In advertisements headlined “PUBLIC NOTICE” in main Indian newspapers on Tuesday, Amazon mentioned: “these actions have been achieved in a clandestine method by enjoying a fraud on the constitutional courts in India.”

Future and Reliance didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

Amazon’s public outcry comes regardless that on March 3 it provided to carry talks. The continuing talks have raised hopes the dispute could possibly be resolved.

Future has mentioned in filings this month that it couldn’t pay hire at many shops given its distressed monetary state of affairs and that Reliance, which had taken over a lot of its leases, had issued it with termination notices.

Amazon is anxious that Reliance is continuous to take over Future shops even because the talks proceed, based on a supply with direct data of the matter who was not authorised to talk to media and declined to be recognized.

The newspaper advertisements have been aimed toward alerting all stakeholders, together with Future’s lenders, that the switch of property to Reliance is legally prohibited, the supply added.