The National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) on Monday allowed creditors and shareholders of Reliance Retail Ventures to hold meetings to seek approval for the company’s proposed Rs 24,700-crore deal with the Future Group. 

The Mumbai bench of the NCLT, led by Suchitra Kanuparthi, today allowed the application by Reliance Retail’s creditors and shareholders to convene meetings to seek approval for the deal. 

The NCLT’s detailed order in the matter is awaited. 

Reliance Retail Ventures is a subsidiary of Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries. 

On June 22, the tribunal had reserved its order on Reliance Retail’s plea to seek consensus of the shareholders on the company’s deal with the Future Group. 

Earlier, on a similar petition by the Future Group, the NCLT had allowed holding meetings of creditors and shareholders for seeking approval for the transaction. 

On October 1, 2021, Reliance Retail extended the Long-Stop date for the completion of its deal with the Kishore Biyani-led Future Group by another six months to March 2022 due to the delays ensuing from the ongoing legal battle with US-based Amazon. 

Long Stop is an established practice in mergers and acquisitions where a timeframe is set by which all the conditions for a transaction need to be fulfilled and the transaction has to be completed. 

Singapore International Arbitration Centre has concluded hearing of the matter between Amazon and the Future Group and has reserved its final order.