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Jeff Bezos-led Amazon Inc is trying to block Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries’ $3.4 billion acquisition of India’s debt-laden local retailer Future Group. While Bezos is the world’s wealthiest person, Ambani occupies the sixth spot.

A vanilla commercial dispute is setting the stage for a clash between the world’s No. 1 and No. 6 richest men. But the legal wrangling is a sideshow. What Jeff Bezos and Mukesh Ambani are really fighting over is pole position in the only billion-plus-people consumer market available to both of them: India.

The apparent landmark is a $3.4 billion arrangement Indian magnate Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd. sewed up in August to gain resources of obligation loaded nearby retailer Future Group. Bezos’ Amazon.com Inc. is attempting to hinder the exchange.

That, in itself, is somewhat of a dampener. Desires were working for the two tycoons to cooperate. In September, Bloomberg News detailed that Ambani had given Amazon an alternative to purchasing as much as 40% of Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd., looking to rehash the achievement he had recently in getting Facebook Inc. furthermore, Alphabet Inc. as accomplices to his computerized stage.

By looking to slow down Ambani’s acquisition of Future, Bezos might be flagging that he would prefer to stay an opponent. Or on the other hand, that he’s purchasing time to improve the offer as of now on the table.

The real fight is possibly fascinating when you set out to find the real story of the cases and counterclaims. Amazon purchased a 49% stake a year ago in a private firm constrained by Kishore Biyani, a pioneer of current configuration retailing in the nation. The speculation gave the U.S. internet business goliath the option to secure Biyani’s offers in the traded on an open market Future Retail Ltd. from the third year. Another of Bezos’ conditions was that Biyani wouldn’t sell his resources — around 1,500 stores cross country — to limited people, including Reliance, which works India’s biggest retail chain.

After the Future-Reliance bargain was declared, Amazon affirmed the break of agreement and acquired an interval remain against the deal from a judge in Singapore, a favored impartial scene in Asia for settling debates in cross-outskirt arrangements. The U.S. organization at that point composed a letter to Indian stock trades and the controller, requesting that they not affirm the exchange.

Future Retail has tested Amazon’s situation by saying that Singapore administering has no legitimate premise in India and that at any rate, it wasn’t involved with the author’s understanding. Given the weakening effect of the Covid-19 pandemic on tasks, the retailer says it’s making the best choice by all partners in offering resources for Reliance. With respect to Amazon’s case of $193 million in harms in addition to intrigue, that obligation, whenever granted by the judge, should fall on Biyani’s private firm that did the arrangement, Future Retail contends.

Biyani is only a pawn in a lot of greater strategic maneuvers. Future’s money crunch didn’t rise abruptly. Amazon had abundant occasion to sneak around India’s lawful limitations on unfamiliar responsibility for chains to go about as a white knight. Yet, it didn’t.

Amazon may at present be keen on joining forces with Ambani — at the correct cost. Different speculators, for example, Silver Lake Partners and KKR and Co., have kept in touch with him checks worth $5 billion altogether. They may have dreaded missing out on what could turn into India’s best blend of physical and advanced shopping, a procedure that uses Reliance Retail’s own personal outlets along with freely claimed area stores associated with Ambani’s 4G telephone organization of 400 million clients. In any case, the part offered to Amazon would mean a $20 billion responsibility. Bezos could bear to perceive how well Ambani executes his arrangement.

Amazon’s India site commenced its yearly celebration season a month ago to record deals in the main couple of days. Dependence Retail’s income additionally hopped 30% in the September quarter from the past a quarter of a year. In any case, despite the fact that India’s cross country lockdown has finished, not all stores have returned completely. Footfall presently can’t seem to recuperate, particularly in design and way of life and at stores inside shopping centers. In Macquarie’s evaluations, the following financial year’s income per share for Reliance Industries, the holding organization, might be 23% beneath the agreement road gauge. An explanation, the financier says, is hardened rivalry, high speculation, and low edges in retail. Dependence Industries shares fell 8.6% in Mumbai on Monday.

Amazon’s letter to the Securities and Exchange Board of India makes a reference to India’s “simplicity of working together,” which has been a sensitive point with unfamiliar speculators from Vodafone Group Plc to Cairn Energy Plc. The controller needs to consider recorded firms responsible for their dealings, Amazon said in the letter, as indicated by Reuters, which has seen a duplicate.

The exact opposite thing India needs is even more negative criticism. The Seattle-based firm as of now needs to work with one hand tied behind its back: As an unfamiliar online business player, it can’t possess stock or transparently rebate stock. Much harsher principles — covering information and calculations — might be on their way. It’s significant for controllers to not allow Amazon to paint a business quarrel as another indication of India’s unreasonable treatment of worldwide speculators.

In a greater number of ways than one, a cat-and-mouse game by Bezos may not be an ill-conceived notion.

This segment doesn’t really mirror the assessment of the particleboard or Bloomberg LP and its proprietors.

Andy Mukherjee is a Bloomberg Opinion feature writer covering modern organizations and money related administrations. He recently was a writer for Reuters Breakingviews.