DSTV DARES COURT ORDER, INSISTS ON NEW TARIFF

In a flagrant display of contempt of court, the John Ugbe, led Multichoice Nigeria, DSTV, a premium satellite company has defied a court injunction restraining it from implementing the hike in price ahead of a hearing fixed for April 16, 2015.
The case with the suit number FHC/L/CS/404/2015 filed in a Federal High Court in Lagos on April 2, 2015 and presided by Justice C.J Aneke had Mr. Osasuyi and Oluyinka Oyeniji as the plaintiffs who joined the National Broadcasting Company in the case where an interim injunction was issued to stop the satellite TV company from implementing the new prices.
The court ahead of the next hearing on April 16, 2015 ordered the company to maintain the status quo and revert to the old price, an order the company failed to honour and went on to collect the new rate.
One of the customers of the company Chukwudi Johnson had on the 9th of April, almost a week after the court injunction was given approached a Multichoice outlet at Ahmadiya in a bid to renew his subscription, to his surprise he was quoted the new subscription rate, when he told the attendant that there is a court injunction that the company should revert to the old rates, the attendant petulantly told him to go and pay the old rate to the court.
In his words, ‘I was shell shocked when the attendant told me to go and pay the old rate of N1500 to the court that if I want to renew my subscription I should be ready to pay the new rate of N1800’ he said.
Similar trips to various Multichoice outlets revealed that DSTV is flagrantly disobeying the court order. At the Multichoice outlet in Ikorodu, the sales attendant told www.perfectbrandsng.com that they were yet to get an order from the head office to revert to old price.
In March, MultiChoice, owners of DStv and GOtv, announced a 20 per cent price increase for all its satellite pay TV bouquets in Nigeria to take effect from April 1, 2015.
Thus, the subscription fee of DSTV’s Premium, Compact plus, Compact, Access, Family and extra view bouquets were all set to increase, as is the price for GOTV Plus and GOTV bouquet.
It is yet to be seen the action that will be taken against DSTV for disobeying the court order.