NewStats: 3,261,660 , 8,174,675 topics. Date: Friday, 30 May 2025 at 12:45 AM 6b201h

The Federal High Court in Abuja has ruled that the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCC) lacks the legal authority to regulate or interfere with how companies set prices in Nigeria’s free market economy.

Justice James Omotosho delivered the verdict in a suit filed by Multichoice Nigeria, the operators of DStv and GOtv, which challenged the FCC’s attempts to intervene in its subscription pricing.

The company also sought protection from a previous lawsuit by lawyer Festus Onifade, which aimed to stop Multichoice from increasing its pay-TV prices.

Although the judge dismissed the suit as an abuse of court process—since a similar matter involving the same parties was already pending—he issued a clear and binding interpretation of the limits of the FCC’s powers.

Justice Omotosho held that the FCC, under current Nigerian law, cannot dictate or control pricing, citing Section 88 of the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Act (FCA). He clarified that only the President of Nigeria has the constitutional authority to fix prices—and only under specific circumstances, such as when regulating essential goods or services.

He further ruled that any delegation of such presidential power to another body must be made through an official and gazetted instrument—something that does not currently exist for the FCC.

“The power to fix prices cannot be exercised by any other person or agency except the President,” the judge stated.

“If delegated, it must be via an instrument published in the official gazette. There is no such delegation before this court.”

Justice Omotosho also ruled that price controls, even if permissible, must apply to an entire industry and not single out a specific company unless there’s evidence of monopoly or market dominance.

He criticised the FCC’s action as discriminatory, noting that other operators in the same sector had not faced similar scrutiny.

“The FCC presented no proof that Multichoice holds a dominant position in the market, or that its price adjustments were excessive,” he said.

The court reinforced the principle of consumer choice in a free market, noting that customers are not compelled to subscribe to Multichoice services and can choose alternatives.

“This is a classic case of a willing seller and a willing buyer,” the judge noted. “The FCC’s role is to monitor for anti-competitive behaviour—not to police prices.”

Justice Omotosho also referenced an earlier ruling by the Competition and Consumer Protection Tribunal (CT), which similarly upheld Multichoice’s right to set its own prices, describing the decision as “well-considered.”

In his concluding remarks, the judge stressed that any government intervention in pricing must adhere strictly to constitutional and legal processes, affirming that businesses operating in a free market economy are entitled to determine their own prices.

https://pmnewsnigeria.com/2025/05/08/fcc-has-no-right-to-regulate-prices-in-free-market-economy-court/

We are finished in this country.
The court just slaughter the Nigerian people for their personal interest 🙄 😒 😑 😐 😕 🤦 🙄.

With the Nigeria First Policy, prices from multichoice will crash soon.

Mr President is doing everything possible for us to live a happy life in Nigeria.

dalongjnr:
We are finished in this country.
The court just slaughter the Nigerian people for their personal interest 🙄 😒 😑 😐 😕 🤦 🙄.

How did the court slaughter Nigerians ? Tinubu is the one slaughtering Nigerians with bad policies, so you expect DSTV to remain same price when petrol was 187 ? It's not possible and the good thing is that you must not watch DSTV

Hmmm

benuejosh:
With the Nigeria First Policy, prices from multichoice will crash soon.

Mr President is doing everything possible for us to live a happy life in Nigeria.

Exactly Benue Josh



Una president is doing everything possible for Benue people to live happy life and I’m so happy Benue people are the happiest in Nigeria



Una think say na me una dey?



And woo unto any Nigerian who thinks Tinubu will beat price of DSTV down to favor Nigerians


A criminal on mission

Nobody force una to sub for DSTV/GOTV.We dey watched TV in the late 70/80s without DSTV/GOTV.

I can't the last time I heard good news in this country since APC/Tinubu took over power

benuejosh:
With the Nigeria First Policy, prices from multichoice will crash soon.

Mr President is doing everything possible for us to live a happy life in Nigeria.

Múmû

Chai. 9ja !. For IELTS , GRE and TEF package, we dey kampe sha

MULTI CHOICE STILL DEY NIGERIA ?




I TOWER MY DISH SINCE

The same way the President fixes petrol price, electricity.

Kundus to the president

Lol this not Petrol...

SarkinYarki:


How did the court slaughter Nigerians ? Tinubu is the one slaughtering Nigerians with bad policies, so you expect DSTV to remain same price when petrol was 187 ? It's not possible and the good thing is that you must not watch DSTV

Mention the bad policies.

Only President, are we under DICTATORSHIP. Cost of service is beyond talk, running generators with diesel. Cost of OBS.Very unfair of FCC, if MTN,GLO Airtel can increase and banks too sms is no longer N4.

Tinubu, time to press DSTV neck 👌📌💯

benuejosh:
With the Nigeria First Policy, prices from multichoice will crash soon.

Mr President is doing everything possible for us to live a happy life in Nigeria.

mugu

dalongjnr:
We are finished in this country.
The court just slaughter the Nigerian people for their personal interest 🙄 😒 😑 😐 😕 🤦 🙄.

lol...people blame other arms of government and totally ignored the judiciary.

The Judiciary is worse than the executive and legislature.

All the politicians that messed up this country, all of them that stole our collective wealth are free men and women. Because the Judiciary is worse than them.

The judiciary was supposed to stop them by ensuring ability, justice, law and order, they are supposed to make them pay for their crimes. But they are all free men and women.

They will appeal

G

The court is right.

Ijaya123:


Mention the bad policies.

Increasing Petrol Price from 187 to 990 in a move that only benefits a certain oil company .

Failing to address the attendant inflation after such a bad policy .

Increasing custom duties at a time when Nigerians are struggling to meet up inflation.

Failure to fight widespread insecurity leading to more hardship and further food inflation.

Only Interested in his political ambitions and nothing else

Wasteful spending on failed palliative programs .

Failure to appoint technocrats into his cabinet as most are career politicians looking for money to go contest election

dalongjnr:
We are finished in this country.
The court just slaughter the Nigerian people for their personal interest 🙄 😒 😑 😐 😕 🤦 🙄.

The court just gave a wise judgement in my opinion because market forces is what determines prices as regulator they can only increase the regulatory fee and dues "tariffs" to counter the dstv but not to force them to run their company by telling them what to charge for services even if it's essential services that dstv is not.

If it's too expensive for you to be watching repetitive programmes on their network then stick to tiktok or Instagram or YouTube but don't tell them to lower prices to suit your pocket.... Besides what is low price to someone is still very high price to others also what is high price to another person is very low price to someone else.

Nigerians should learn to live within their means... That's one of the major problems in this country.

benuejosh:
With the Nigeria First Policy, prices from multichoice will crash soon.

Mr President is doing everything possible for us to live a happy life in Nigeria.

The remaining mad ones still roaming the street with their clothes on and living on mama-thank you

It's even common sense. How do you expect Multi Choice not to increase prices in this hyper inflation economy? Never made any sense to me

GOOD MOVE

OYO, Jagaban is not interested in fixing prices of anything. His philosophy is demand and supply, you're only selling that expensive because people can afford it. i don't really agree with him on this but he's Dike Simba 1.

One of the sensible judgements from the judiciary.
A government agency commanding a private company not to increase prices is crazy. DStv is a luxury good and not a necessity, if you don't watch it you will still exist.

SarkinYarki:


How did the court slaughter Nigerians ? Tinubu is the one slaughtering Nigerians with bad policies, so you expect DSTV to remain same price when petrol was 187 ? It's not possible and the good thing is that you must not watch DSTV

A fi suru o

[color=#000099][/color]

benuejosh:
With the Nigeria First Policy, prices from multichoice will crash soon.

Mr President is doing everything possible for us to live a happy life in Nigeria.

How will this policy change anything? Everything possible like buying foreign cars for all the arms of government were we have innoson and Nord? Going for medical trip at and England?
Is there any media house set up by the govt? NTA is it not dead?

They should have assigned it to Justice Nnamdi Dimgba. He's an expert in Competition law.

But Omotosho is one of the most brilliant judges in Nigeria today. His judgments are usually upheld up to the Supreme Court. They rarely upturn them.