{"id":63428,"date":"2025-03-27T12:53:28","date_gmt":"2025-03-27T12:53:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=63428"},"modified":"2025-03-27T12:53:28","modified_gmt":"2025-03-27T12:53:28","slug":"court-to-rule-on-multichoice-fccpc-price-dispute-may-8","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/03\/27\/court-to-rule-on-multichoice-fccpc-price-dispute-may-8\/","title":{"rendered":"Court to Rule on MultiChoice, FCCPC Price Dispute May 8"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Adenike Lawal<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Federal High Court in Abuja has reserved judgment until May 8, 2025, in the heated legal dispute between MultiChoice Nigeria and the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) over the recent increase in subscription fees for DStv and GOtv.<\/p>\n

Justice James Omotosho presided over the case on March 27, 2025, as both sides argued over whether the FCCPC has the power to regulate MultiChoice\u2019s pricing.<\/p>\n

MultiChoice, represented by senior advocate N.J. Onigbanjo, insisted that Nigeria operates a free-market economy where service providers do not need regulatory approval before adjusting prices.<\/p>\n

He argued that only the President has the authority to control pricing, not the FCCPC.<\/p>\n

MultiChoice had notified the FCCPC of its planned price hike in a letter dated February 21, 2025.<\/p>\n

However, six days later, the commission ordered the company to halt the increase. In response, MultiChoice filed a lawsuit on March 3 to challenge the directive.<\/p>\n

The FCCPC, represented by Prof. J.E. Agbugu, defended its intervention, stating that it acted within its legal mandate to protect Nigerian consumers from exploitative pricing.<\/p>\n

While admitting that the FCCPC does not directly set prices, Agbugu argued that the commission has the authority to investigate price hikes for possible consumer exploitation.<\/p>\n

Justice Omotosho questioned whether government-imposed price controls could be justified in a free-market economy.<\/p>\n

Onigbanjo maintained that no presidential directive had been issued to regulate prices, reinforcing his argument that MultiChoice had not violated any laws.<\/p>\n

The case stems from MultiChoice\u2019s March 1, 2025, subscription fee increase, which saw DStv Premium rise from N37,000 to N44,500 and Compact Plus jump from N25,000 to N30,000, among other adjustments.<\/p>\n

The FCCPC\u2019s opposition to this move sparked the legal battle, now set for final judgment in May.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Adenike Lawal The Federal High Court in Abuja has reserved judgment until May 8, 2025, in the heated legal dispute between MultiChoice Nigeria and the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) over the recent increase in subscription fees for DStv and GOtv. Justice James Omotosho presided over the case on March 27, 2025, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":63429,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1386],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-63428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-judiciary","tag-featured"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63428","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\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63428"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63430,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63428\/revisions\/63430"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}