|THE DEN|
WORLDS’ RICHEST MAN - JEFF BEZOS VS ASIA’S RICHEST MAN - MUKESH AMBANI
MUKESH AMBANI
JEFF BEZOS
Till August 2020 Future Group led by Kishore Biyani had a massive debt of Rs. 12,778 crores
August 29, 2020
Reliance led by Mukesh Ambani buys Future group’s retail, wholesale, logistics and warehousing divisions for Rs, 24,713 crores.
October 25, 2020 On 25 Oct, Singapore In- ternational Arbitration Centre had passed an in- terim order in favour of Amazon, delivering a blow to Future - Reliance deal.
December 22, 2020 The Delhi High Court ordered Amazon cannot use an agreement with one Fu- ture group company i.e. Future Coupon to exert control over a deal struck by another company i.e. Future Retail. That would be in violation of India’s Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA). Not just that, the court had also gone on to say that this amounts to tortious inter- ference.
January 21, 2021 Sebi nods to Future - Reliance deal subject to court proceedings. March 18, 2021 The Delhi High Court said that Future Group violated the Emergency Award, and also questioned why should they not be detained in prison.
March 22, 2021 The Delhi High Court stayed the single judge's order restraining Future group from going ahead with the deal with Reliance Re- tail to sell its business, which was objected to by Amazon. April 14, 2021 Amazon approached The Supreme Court of India against The Delhi High Court or- der which stayed a single judge's order restraining the Future Group - Reliance deal.
May 5, 2021 The Supreme Court of India defers the case to June 28th amid the urgency of cases regarding the pandemic.
Amid the pandemic all over the world where the common man is struggling to make ends meet, these billion- aires are making a fortune. Mukesh Ambani led Reliance industries made a profit of Rs. 13,227 crores (1.8 billion dollars) while Jeff Bezos led Amazon made a profit of 8.1 billion dollars in the first quarter of 2021.
A country of 1,380,004,385
The feud between these two richest men is to capture the approximately 1 trillion dollar market of the Indian consumers. Reliance is already the leader in most of the industries in India and Amazon sees it as the biggest competitor in the Indian market. With more than a billion consumers in the market, Amazon is not willing to let Reliance enter and share the pie. Future group has the biggest front end and back end network in the entire country but being based mostly offline, the company was hit hard during the pandemic’s first lockdown which trickled down to the need to sell the company attributing to the massive debt of Rs. 12,778 crores. If Reliance acquires the Future group’s net- work, it will impact severely to Amazon’s market share of the Indian market.
With The Supreme Court busy with the pandemic, Big Bazaar (pride of the Future Group) has started
its two hour express online delivery in 150 cities making a stand in the online market.
Reliance is not the one to back down especially when you are fighting in the home country whereas Amazon has the confidence of being a global leader in the online marketplace. It is a clash of the titans of the world with both having no worry of spending billions on this legal battle because the game is to spend billions to capture the trillion that is the market of billions.
After all, at the end, it’s all about the money.
Hon’ble Supreme Court of India
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