The Abuja Federal High Court has scheduled a date for judgment in the case filed by MultiChoice Nigeria Limited against the Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (FCCPC).
Justice James Kolawole Omotosho scheduled the date on Thursday after lawyers representing both parties made their oral final submissions and adopted their written addresses.
The case is a fallout of a recent price hike by MultiChoice on its GOtv and DStv services, prompting the FCCPC to move on it.
But the court had earlier granted a restraining order halting the commission from taking any administrative action against MultiChoice.
In the resumed hearing on March 27, the court approved the application of FCCPC for extension of time to regularize its procedures.
It also allowed MultiChoice to withdraw an application for interlocutory injunction, which was now moot with the subsisting restraining order.
Arguing its case, MultiChoice’s senior counsel, Moyosore Onigbanjo (SAN), maintained that the main question in the case is whether FCCPC can, by law, regulate the prices at which the company offers its services.
Granting the regulatory role of the commission, Onigbanjo argued that the FCCPC Act does not confer on it the power to fix or control prices.
He continued to note that a previous court battle between MultiChoice and the FCCPC had ruled that only the President of Nigeria could control prices of goods and services.
Even the President, however, he noted, has come out in public to declare that his administration does not believe in price control, leaving prices to be set by market forces instead.
MultiChoice also charged the FCCPC with discrimination, intimating that most businesses in Nigeria have raised their prices due to inflation and the economy without it having raised similar questions to them.
It sought the court to declare in its favour and grant all reliefs prayed for in the suit (FHC/ABJ/CS/379/2025).
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