The Apex Court, in the recent case of Amazon.com NV Investment Holdings LLC v Future Retails Limited, gave the verdict in favor of e-commerce giant Amazon over the dispute of merger deal of Future Retail Limited Reliance group.
In the instant case, the Amazon had moved the apex court and challenged the order passed by Division Bench of Delhi High Court which stayed the Single Bench’s direction which upheld the Emergency Award passed by Singapore Tribunal.
The supreme court approved the enforcement of Emergency Award passed by the Singapore Arbitrator, which stalled the Rs. 24,731 crore deal between Future Retail and Reliance, in India.
While reading out the operative part of the judgment, the bench held that Emergency Arbitrator’s award holds good under Section 17(1) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, and added that it would be wholly incorrect to consider that this section excludes Emergency Arbitrator’s award.
Apart from this, the apex court also upheld the order of Delhi High Court’s single bench which ruled in favor of the enforcement of Emergency Award. It further held that such order would not stand appealable before the Division Bench of High Court under Section 37(2) of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act.
The parties pointed out that Law Commission of India, in its 246th amendment, suggested an amendment to give recognition to Emergency Arbitration, however, the same had not yet been accepted.
To this, the apex court observed that the fact that Law Commission’s recommendation is yet to be accepted by the Parliament, would not under any circumstance, allow the courts to preclude from interpreting that the recommendations forms part of “apt interpretation of law.”
Furthermore, it highlighted that the party which did not participated in Emergency Arbitration proceeding, could not later come up with the defence that it would not be bound by the award.
These were few of the observations made by the Apex Court in the operative portion of the judgment.
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