{"id":65475,"date":"2025-05-08T10:40:42","date_gmt":"2025-05-08T10:40:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=65475"},"modified":"2025-05-08T10:40:42","modified_gmt":"2025-05-08T10:40:42","slug":"court-throws-out-multichoice-case-slams-suit-as-waste-of-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/05\/08\/court-throws-out-multichoice-case-slams-suit-as-waste-of-time\/","title":{"rendered":"Court Throws Out Multichoice Case, Slams Suit as Waste of Time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Adenike Lawal<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A Federal High Court has struck out a legal challenge filed by Multichoice Nigeria against the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, declaring the case an abuse of judicial process.<\/p>\n<p>Multichoice had dragged the Commission to court in protest of its interest in scrutinizing pricing strategies in the pay-TV sector. But the court ruled that the FCCPC has no legal backing to fix or interfere in the prices set by private businesses.<\/p>\n<p>In a ruling delivered in Abuja, the court pointed out that the FCCPC\u2019s role does not extend to controlling market prices, especially where alternatives exist for consumers.<\/p>\n<p>The judgment dismissed all arguments from Multichoice, adding that there was no solid proof that its subscription fees were unfair or exploitative.<\/p>\n<p>The court further emphasized that Nigeria\u2019s pay-TV market is not monopolized and that subscribers are not bound to Multichoice alone, thereby nullifying claims of exploitation.<\/p>\n<p>The verdict is a clear message that while consumer rights matter, market freedom must be respected, particularly in sectors driven by competition.<\/p>\n<p>It also sets a precedent limiting the reach of regulatory bodies in the pricing decisions of private firms.<\/p>\n<p>This ruling represents a major blow to moves seeking government control over pay-TV pricing and a reminder of the legal limits regulators must respect.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Adenike Lawal A Federal High Court has struck out a legal challenge filed by Multichoice Nigeria against the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, declaring the case an abuse of judicial process. Multichoice had dragged the Commission to court in protest of its interest in scrutinizing pricing strategies in the pay-TV sector. But the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":65476,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1386],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-65475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-judiciary"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65475","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=65475"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65477,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65475\/revisions\/65477"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}