Multichoice Nigeria Limited — a Pay TV company that provides television services to DSTV subscribers in Nigeria, has been issued a final Order by the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC). Multichoice Nigeria was issued the order for the failure of upholding an alleged mutual agreement on tariffs review and other services.
Multichoice Nigeria had announced in July 2018, that they will be increasing their cable television systems –DSTV and GOTV rates, effective August 2018. This new rate would be 7.5% higher than it used to be. In essence, Premium package subscribers will be paying N15,800 other than the N14700 they used. All compact Plus subscribers were to pay N10650 against N9900; Compact subscribers to pay N6800 from N6300; Family subscribers to pay N4000 from N3800 and Access subscribers were to pay N2000 from N1900.
The review, however, did not go down well with the FCCPC, which ordered Multichoice Nigeria to cancel the review. Despite the order, Multichoice still carried on with the review. Seeing that Multichoice did not obey the order, the Consumer Protection agency sought a restraining order against Multichoice Nigeria and its agents as regards to the review from the Federal High Court, Abuja.
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The application with case No. FHC/ABJ/CS/894 was approved for a temporary prohibition of price increment on DSTV and GOTV by Justice Nnamdi Dimgba in August 2018. Justice Dimbga restrained the Pay TV company and its agents from rate increments pending when the motion on notice is determined. The appeal by Multichoice Nigeria on the 24th of August 2018, was rejected by Justice Dimgba.
Multichoice has, however, been defiant to the court order as the tariff has been in progress from August 2018 till date. The FCCPC then entered its final order against the company in January 2019, striking out the mutual agreement and making it a directive for the company to comply to.