India’s high court turns down Amazon’s appeal against Future’s decision to cancel the deal.
MUMBAI (Reuters) – An Indian appeals court turned down Amazon.com Inc.’s (NASDAQ: AMZN) appeal against the antitrust suspension of its $200 million investment deal with Future Group on Monday, saying that the U.S. company hid information when it asked for approval in 2019.
In December, India’s antitrust agency said that Amazon hid the real size of its 2019 investment and made false and misleading statements. Amazon fought the decision, saying that it hadn’t been hiding anything.
On Monday, a two-judge panel at the Indian tribunal turned down Amazon’s claim. They said that Amazon was responsible “for its failure to provide relevant information on the combination.”
“The tribunal fully agrees” with the antitrust group’s decision to put the 2019 deal on hold, the statement said.
Amazon didn’t answer right away when asked for a comment.
The Indian court also upheld a fine of around 2 billion rupees ($26 million) that the antitrust body imposed on Amazon in December. The fine needs to be paid within 45 days.
After the 2019 deal between Amazon and Future, there were a number of legal disputes. The U.S. company went to court a year later to stop Future from selling assets to Reliance Industries, an Amazon competitor in India, for $3.4 billion. It did this by pointing to the terms of the deal from 2019.
In April of this year, Reliance stopped talking about a deal with Future because the legal battles were taking too long and Future hadn’t gotten the necessary regulatory approvals. The company’s main retail business, Future Retail, is in the process of filing for bankruptcy.
Amazon is still fighting the Future Group in court over damages it says it has suffered because of Future’s talks with Reliance.
