The Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC) has corrected an erroneous impression created by MultiChoice regarding a suit instituted by the pay television marked FHC/ABJ/CS/379/2025.
MultiChoice dragged FCCPC to the Federal High Court in Abuja, seeking the court’s protection from sanctions by the FCCPC over an increase in the prices of its bouque on DStv and GOtv.
MultiChoice, via its lawyer Moyosore Onigbanjo SAN, argued that the FCCPC had no right to control the price at which it offers its services to the public.
Onigbanjo noted that the Act establishing the FCCPC did not confer on it the powers to regulate prices or prevent anyone from increasing its prices.
However, FCCPC, through its lead counsel, Prof. Joe Agbugu SAN corrected the error in the position of MultiChoice, stating that “there was no issue of price regulation or fixing as at the time the action commenced”, adding that the statute establishing the FCCPC gave it “powers to check exorbitant pricing” and also powers to “regulate abuse of dominant position in the market” as it relates to prices and passing of cost to the consumer.
Furthermore, FCCPC noted that the case before the court is not of price regulation but the powers of the Commission to investigate prices that are deemed exploitative and abuse of dominant position.
“The Commission is not to tell you to use price A or B but to determine that the price is exploitative”, he said.
“Our action is not about price fixing; the issue is about whether the price is exorbitant…the mandate of the Commission is to protect the consumer, ” he added.
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