The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) on Friday adjourned until February 28 the hearing on Amazon’s appeal against the December 17, 2021, order of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) that kept in abeyance its nod for the 2019 deal with Future Coupons (FCPL). The CCI had also imposed a Rs 202-crore penalty on Amazon.

Directed by the Supreme Court, earlier this week, to decide Amazon’s plea expeditiously, the NCLAT is likely to hear the matter on a day-to-day basis from February 28.

“Our endeavour will be to hear the matter on a day-to-day basis,” the two-member NCLAT bench said. NCLAT is an appellate authority for the orders passed by the CCI.

During the course of the proceedings, senior counsel Gopal Subramanium pleaded on behalf of Amazon but due to paucity of time, the tribunal could hear him only partly.

In his argument, Subramanium flayed the CCI order. He said all the agreements were disclosed before the CCI and nothing was hidden. Competition assessment of the deal was also undertaken by the Commission and it was held that there was no appreciable adverse effect on the competition.

In its December 17 order, the anti-trust regulator had said an approval granted to Amazon in 2019 to acquire a 49% stake in Future Coupons (FCPL) would ‘stand in abeyance’, as the firm suppressed information while seeking clearance.

The CCI’s December 2021 order followed complaints filed by FPCL, Future Retail’s independent directors and the Confederation of All India Traders (CAIT) alleging Amazon, in its plea before CCI, had not disclosed the intent to indirectly control Future Retail, the parent firm of FCPL, via its 49% acquisition in FCPL.

Amazon has been using the 2019 deal with FCPL to block Future’s Rs 24,713-crore deal with Reliance. Amazon had dragged Future Group to arbitration at the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC) in October 2020, arguing that FRL had violated their contract by entering into a deal for the sale of its retail assets to Reliance Retail on a slump sale basis. On its part, Future has denied any wrongdoing.