Category: pay TV

Changing Channels: Competition Commission Tunes Into MultiChoice and Altech’s Alleged 2014 Market-Sharing Agreement

Posted on by Editor

By Tyla-Lee Coertzen and Matthew Freer

On 15 April 2026, the South African Competition Commission (the “Commission”) referred a complaint against MultiChoice South Africa (Pty) Ltd (“MultiChoice”) and Altech UEC South Africa (Pty) Ltd (“Altech”) to the Competition Tribunal for prosecution.

The Commission’s complaint centres around allegations of breaches of section 4(1)(b)(ii) of the Competition Act 89 of 1998 (the “Act”) regarding a market-division agreement entered into between Multichoice and Altech. Specifically, the Commission’s complaint alleges that that, in February 2014, the firms agreed that Altech, a manufacturer of Set Top Boxes (“STBs”), would refrain from entering the pay-television (“pay-TV”) market as a competitor to MultiChoice.

At the time, Altech was a key supplier of STBs to MultiChoice. The Commission argues that this arrangement effectively resulted in allocation of the pay-TV market, where MultiChoice remained a dominant provider of subscription television services, while Altech remained confined to the hardware manufacturing space, despite having the theoretical capability to become an effective competitor.

The referral was announced on 4 May 2026, by way of a media statement released by the Commission issued a media statement announcing the referral of a collusion complaint against pay-TV giant MultiChoice and electronics manufacturer Altech. The referral marks a significant escalation in the Commission’s enforcement of cartel conduct within the broadcasting and technology sectors.

Section 4(1)(b)(ii) of the Act prescribes as follows:

  • An agreement between, or concerted practice by, firms, or a decision by an association of firms, is prohibited if it is between parties in a horizontal relationship and if-
  • it involves any of the following restrictive horizontal practices:
  • dividing markets by allocating customers, suppliers, territories, or specific types of goods or services;

The allegations are founded on a potential per se prohibition, meaning that the Commission is not required to prove that the agreement had actual anti-competitive effects, the existence of the agreement itself is sufficient to establish a violation of the Act.

If the Tribunal ultimately finds against the firms, they face administrative penalties of up to 10% of their respective annual turnovers.

To understand the competition concerns arising from the Commission’s complaint, one must examine the relationship between the two entities during the 2014-2015 period. At the time of the alleged agreement, Altech was a unit of the JSE-listed Altron group (Business Day, 2026). Beyond manufacturing decoders, Altech launched a product known as the “Node,” an interactive smart home and video-on-demand device that utilised satellite connectivity. The Commission appears to view the “Node” as a potential competitive threat to MultiChoice’s DStv service (Business Day, 2026). The agreement in question, according to the regulator, ensured that Altech would not transition from a supplier of hardware to a rival provider of pay-TV services, thereby protecting MultiChoice’s market dominance.

In response to the media statement and the referral, MultiChoice issued a formal statement to the press denying any contravention of the law. The company confirmed that the agreement in question was a “historical supply agreement” that has since come to an end in 2015 (Business Day, 2026).

Multichoice asserts that the arrangement was a standard commercial supply agreement rather than a cartel arrangement. MultiChoice also noted that it is “considering the referral and will respond fully within the prescribed timelines,” indicating that it will challenge the Commission’s interpretation of the facts in due course during the subsequent proceedings before the Tribunal. As of the publication of the Commission’s statement, Altech, which was sold by Altron to Skyblu Technologies, a Skyworth affiliate, in 2019, had not issued a public response.

John Oxenham, Partner at Primerio notes: “The referral of MultiChoice and Altech illustrates the Commission’s continued vigilance regarding market allocation in the digital broadcasting sector. While the Commission asserts that the 2014 agreement served to push a potential competitor out of the market, MultiChoice argues that the historical agreement was benign. The case analysis will likely hinge on whether the Tribunal views Altech as a potential competitor in the pay-TV market at the time of the agreement.”

Do antitrust settlements require an admission of guilt? Appellate body says “no”, overrules CID

Posted on by Editor

Barring an application for review to the community’s highest court, decisions by the COMESA Competition Commission and its CID (Committee for Initial Determinations) are reviewed by the COMESA Appeals Board (“CAB”). In other words, the CAB is the crucial mid-layer of appellate review in antitrust matters across the COMESA region.

The CAB recently published its important December 2022 ruling in the CAF / Confédération Africane de Football matter. The CAF case is noteworthy in at least 3 respects, says Andreas Stargard, a competition attorney with Primerio International:

“For one, it deals with one of the CCC’s very first cases involving anti-competitive business practices; heretofore, virtually all decisions by the Commission involved pure merger matters.

Second, the CAB ruling is important in that it lays the groundwork for future settlements (or commitments) between the Commission and parties accused (but not yet found guilty) of violations of the COMESA competition regulations.

Lastly, the Appeals Board highlights the importance of issuing well-reasoned, written decisions, on which the parties (and others) can rely in the future. The CAB has made clear what we at Primerio have long advocated for: a competition enforcer must articulate clearly and state fully all of the reasons for its findings and ultimate decision(s). This is necessary in order for readers of the written opinion to evaluate the factual and legal bases for each. The CAB has now expressly held so, which is a welcome move in the right direction for COMESA litigants!”

In an ironic twist in the 5-year saga of the CAF investigation by the CCC, the Commission and the parties themselves had reached an agreed settlement, according to whose terms the parties did not admit guilt, yet agreed to (and in fact anticipatorily did) cease and desist from performing under their sports-marketing contract, which was essentially torn up by the commitment decision. Yet, to the surprise of the CCC and the private parties under investigation, in the summer of 2022 the CID refused to sign off on the settlement, due to the sole (otherwise unexplained) reason that there was a lack of an admission of guilt. The parties sought reconsideration on various grounds, which the CID again refused a second time. These rulings were then appealed — successfully — to the CAB, which quashed the CID’s unsubstantiated determinations and gave effect to the parties’ previously-reached settlement agreement with the CCC.

The full decision — which deals in detail with the CAF’s distribution agreements for the commercialization of marketing and media rights in relation to sports events — can be accessed on AAT’s site, see below.

comesa-appeals-board-decision-in-caf.pdfDownload

Pan-African Antitrust Round-Up: Mauritius to Egypt & Tunisia (in)to COMESA

Posted on by Editor

A spring smorgasbord of African competition-law developments

As AAT reported in late February, it is not only the COMESA Competition Commission (CCC), but also the the Egyptian antitrust authorities, which now have referred the heads of the Confederation of African Football (CAF) to the Egyptian Economic Court for competition-law violations relating to certain exclusive marketing & broadcasting rights.  In addition, it has been reported that the Egyptian Competition Authority (ECA) has also initiated prosecution of seven companies engaged in alleged government-contract bid rigging in the medical supply field, relating to hospital supplies.

Nigeria remains, for now, one of the few powerhouse African economies without any antitrust legislation (as AAT has reported on here, here, here and here).

But, notes Andreas Stargard, an antitrust attorney with Primerio Ltd., “this status quo is possibly about to change: still waiting for the country’s Senate approval and presidential sign-off, the so-called Federal Competition and Consumer Protection Bill of 2016 recently made it past the initial hurdle of receiving sufficient votes in the lower House of Representatives.  Especially in light of the Nigerian economy’s importance to trade in the West African sphere, swift enactment of the bill would be a welcome step in the right direction.”

The global trend in competition law towards granting immunity to cartel whistleblowers has now been embraced by the Competition Commission of Mauritius (CCM), but with a twist: in a departure from U.S. and EU models, which usually do not afford amnesty to the lead perpetrators of hard-core antitrust violations, the CCM will also grant temporary immunity (during the half-year period from March 1 until the end of August 2017) not only to repentant participants but also to lead initiators of cartels, under the country’s Leniency Programme.

The Executive Director of the CCM, Deshmuk Kowlessur, is quoted in the official agency statement as follows:

‘The policy worldwide including Mauritius, regarding leniency for cartel is that the initiators of cartel cannot benefit from leniency programmes and get immunity from or reduction in fines. The amnesty for cartel initiatorsis a one-off opportunity for cartel initiators to benefit from immunity or up to 100% reduction in fines as provided for under the CCM’s leniency programme. The amnesty is a real incentive for any enterprise to end its participation in a cartel. In many cases it is not clear for the cartel participant itself as to which participant is the initiator. The participants being unsure whether they are an initiator finds it too risky to disclose the cartel and apply for leniency. The amnesty provides this unique window of 6 months where such a cartel participant can apply and benefit from leniency without the risk of seeing its application rejected on ground of it being an initiator.’

 

COMESA Competition Commission logoFinally, COMESA will grow from 19 to 20 member states, welcoming Tunisia at the upcoming October 2017 summit: the official statement notes that “Tunisia first applied for observer status in COMESA in 2005 but the matter was not concluded. In February, 2016 the country formally wrote to the Secretary General making inquiries on joining COMESA. This set in motion the current process towards its admission. once successfully concluded, Tunisia will become the 20[th] member of COMESA.”

This means that within 6 months of accession to the Common Market, Tunisia’s business community will be bound by the competition regulations (including merger control) enforced by the CCC.  Speaking of the CCC, the agency also recently entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the Mauritian CCM on March 24, facilitating inter-agency coordination.  In addition, the Zimbabwean Competition and Tariff Commission (CTC) will host a national sensitisation workshop on COMESA competition policy on May 16, 2017 in Harare, purportedly as a result of “over 50 transactions involving cross-border mergers notified” to the CCC involving the Zimbabwean market.  “The main objective of the national workshop is to raise awareness among the key stakeholders and business community in Zimbabwe with regards to the provisions and implementation of COMEA competition law,” the CTC noted in a statement.