Future Retail to CCI: Amazon misled regulator

Independent administrators of Future Retail (FRL) have shot off one other letter to the Competition Commission of India (CCI), alleging that Amazon’s submissions to the watchdog had been fully “contradictory” to its earlier inside correspondence and statements given to courts.
The administrators reiterated their plea for revocation of approval given by CCI for Amazon’s funding in Future Coupons Private Ltd (FCPL) two years in the past.
“In spite of the fact that in their mind, the rights acquired by Amazon over FRL were strategic, Amazon has chosen to represent these rights as ‘investment protection rights’ to CCI,” the administrators of FRL said within the letter dated November 10.
In the most recent letter, the impartial administrators alleged that Amazon’s illustration that it doesn’t have any direct or oblique shareholding in FRL can also be contradicted by their very own inside data. They quoted a letter written by Amazon India authorized head to Amazon CEO, mentioning a 25 per cent premium over regulatory value of FRL was being paid on account of the strategic rights and name choices.

Originally, Amazon was to take a position instantly in FRL by means of the Foreign Portfolio Investment (FPI) route, however resulting from restrictions in Indian overseas funding legal guidelines the corporate determined to make use of a “twin-entity investment” construction.
That is, Amazon was to spend money on FCPL and FCPL would purchase a 9.82 per cent of FRL, the letter added.
The letter, a duplicate of which was despatched to BSE and Sebi, additionally alleged that Amazon gave totally different and contradictory causes to courts and CCI for the investments. fe