Amazon.com Inc., which is trying to block India\u2019s richest man from taking over a struggling retail chain, fired a fresh salvo by alleging that money from the local firm was possibly diverted to other companies. <\/p>\n
Future Retail Ltd. transfered Rs 7,000 crore ($939 million) in the year ended March 2020 as a capital advance to a company controlled by its founder Kishore Biyani and as payment for goods and services purchased from the related firm, Amazon said in a letter seen by Bloomberg News. Future Retail also created unusual rental security deposits and made advances to suppliers worth a total Rs 4,300 crore the same year, even as business slumped and it was shutting stores, Amazon said. <\/p>\n
\u201cSignificant amounts may have been diverted from Future Retail,\u201d Amazon said. By unwinding at least part of these transactions, Future Retail can \u201cimmediately partially repay outstanding debt owed to banks and creditors to ensure business continuity and survival,\u201d it added. <\/p>\n
The transactions were part of the public disclosures made by the company as part of standard governance practices, Future Retail\u2019s representative said by email, adding that \u201cthere is nothing new that is being brought to the notice, except for false speculations being created out of selective excerpts.\u201d A representative for Amazon India declined to comment. <\/p>\n
The U.S. giant marked a copy of its letter to the finance minister, RBI governor, Sebi and other authorities, seeking an investigation. <\/p>\n
A probe would risk delaying the planned takeover of Future Retail by Mukesh Ambani\u2019s Reliance Industries Ltd., making it harder for the tycoon to increase his footprint. Ambani and Amazon are locked in a battle for dominance of the world\u2019s biggest market that\u2019s open to foreign competition, with the tussle playing out in courts in India and abroad, as well as across the country\u2019s regulators. <\/p>\n
The letter, dated Nov. 24, comes as India\u2019s antitrust authority is hearing a petition from Future Retail to revoke regulatory approval of a 2019 deal between one of its group companies and an Amazon unit, saying the American retailer lied to the regulator. Amazon says Future Retail\u2018s plan to sell its stores to Reliance — Amazon\u2019s rival — violates the 2019 partnership contract, while the indebted Indian group says it would collapse if the transaction fails.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Amazon.com Inc., which is trying to block India\u2019s richest man from taking over a struggling retail chain, fired a fresh salvo by alleging that money from the local firm was possibly diverted to other companies. Future Retail Ltd. transfered Rs 7,000 crore ($939 million) in the year ended March 2020 as a capital advance to a company controlled by its founder Kishore Biyani and as payment for goods and services purchased from the related firm, Amazon said in a letter seen by Bloomberg News. Future Retail also created unusual rental security deposits and made advances to suppliers worth a total […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-799212","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-it-2"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=799212"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/799212\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=799212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=799212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/telecomlive.in\/web\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=799212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}