By Emmanuel Ogbodo<\/p>\n
The Competition and Consumer Protection Tribunal has approved the withdrawal of a case against MultiChoice Nigeria concerning subscription price hikes. This decision was made by a three-member tribunal panel led by Thomas Okosu on Monday, following lawyer Festus Onifade’s oral request to withdraw his case against the Pay TV provider.<\/p>\n
Previously, the tribunal had fined MultiChoice 150 million naira and ordered a one-month free subscription for ignoring interim orders that restrained DSTV and GOTV price hikes. A different tribunal, chaired by Saratu Shafii, had temporarily halted MultiChoice from implementing the price increase scheduled for May 1, 2024, pending further hearings.<\/p>\n
MultiChoice\u2019s lawyer, Moyosore J. Onibanjo (SAN), filed a preliminary objection, arguing that the court should dismiss the suit filed by Festus Onifade due to a previous ruling in favour of his client regarding a similar price dispute. Onifade contended that the issue at hand was whether MultiChoice Nigeria had provided sufficient notice about the May 1, 2024, subscription price increase, rather than the actual regulation or increase of prices.<\/p>\n
In its ruling, the tribunal, chaired by Justice Thomas Okosu, dismissed MultiChoice\u2019s preliminary objection, citing their disobedience to interim orders, and imposed a 150 million naira fine along with a one-month free subscription order. MultiChoice appealed the ruling, arguing that the tribunal’s decision was erroneous, and filed counter-affidavits justifying the price increase, requesting dismissal of the case.<\/p>\n
At the resumed hearing on Monday, Onibanjo requested an adjournment until the Court of Appeal ruled on their applications, citing Order 6, Rule 4 of the Court of Appeal Rules, which allows direct application to the Appeal Court under special circumstances. He emphasised the tribunal should await the Court of Appeal\u2019s decision.<\/p>\n
Onifade argued against MultiChoice\u2019s adjournment request, asserting it had been addressed previously and resolved. He noted that any stay of proceedings should first be filed in the original court where the decision was made, only escalating to a higher court if initially refused.<\/p>\n
The tribunal chair, Thomas Okosu, ruled that while MultiChoice had the right to appeal, they must follow proper procedures, noting no special circumstances preventing them from filing a stay of proceedings with the tribunal. He overruled MultiChoice\u2019s submission, stating that merely filing an appeal does not constitute a stay of proceedings.<\/p>\n
Onibanjo further argued that the tribunal should adjourn for vacation, typically from July to September, handling only urgent matters. Onifade countered that MultiChoice could not dictate the tribunal\u2019s schedule. The judge agreed with the tribunal\u2019s vacation rule, adjourning the case to November.<\/p>\n
Subsequently, Onifade chose to withdraw the case, fearing MultiChoice would use the vacation period to advance its appeal and undermine his case. He stated, “I am abandoning this matter. I am withdrawing this case,” explaining that he filed the suit to challenge multinational companies’ oppressive practices against Nigerian consumers.<\/p>\n
The FCCPC\u2019s lawyer supported Onifade\u2019s withdrawal request. Onibanjo raised no objections, and the tribunal granted Onifade’s request to withdraw the suit, with no costs awarded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Emmanuel Ogbodo The Competition and Consumer Protection Tribunal has approved the withdrawal of a case against MultiChoice Nigeria concerning subscription price hikes. This decision was made by a three-member tribunal panel led by Thomas Okosu on Monday, following lawyer Festus Onifade’s oral request to withdraw his case against the Pay TV provider. Previously, the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34139,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-41024","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41024","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41024"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41024\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41025,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41024\/revisions\/41025"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34139"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41024"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41024"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41024"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}