11 March 2022: The Nigerian tax authority and Mulitchoice, Africa’s biggest TV- provider have agreed upon an out of court settlement. The terms and conditions include, The South African company to withdraw all pending lawsuits and the Federal Inland Revenue Service to conduct a forensic audit of MultiChoice’s accounts to determine the company’s tax liability. 

MultiChoice went to court last year to oppose the penalty imposed by the tax authority, who said the owner of the DSTV service skipped taxes and denied auditors access to its servers. There seems to be a lot of tiff between Nigerian and South African firms, and after the MTN fiasco, this seems to be the newest on the conflict front.

Johannesburg-based MTN entered into a dispute after they allegedly cancelled subscriptions of people without proper registrations in 2016, for which they paid more than $1 billion fine and agreed to list its Nigerian operation in Lagos.

MultiChoice’s shares have enjoyed the limelight and skyrocketed over the last eight months since the initial tax claim, gaining 9.2% over the period. They rose 2.1% by the close in Johannesburg on Wednesday, valuing the company at 54 billion rand ($3.6 billion).