The Court of Appeal has delivered a Judgment in the case between Multichoice Botswana (Proprietary) Limited (“Multichoice Botswana”) and Botswana Communications Regulatory Authority (“BOCRA”) where Multichoice Botswana had brought a review on the decision of BOCRA to impose guidelines and license conditions on Multichoice Botswana to submit its intended tariffs to BOCRA for approval.

The Court of Appeal held that BOCRA intended to unlawfully impose conditions on Multichoice Botswana for services it does not provide, in order to regulate the services and conduct of a third party, Multichoice Africa Limited.

This is a huge victory for the rule of law in that it reinforces that statutory bodies such as BOCRA, must always act within their enabling legislation and any abuse of power will be set aside by the Courts.

Commercial Partner Sipho Ziga and associate, Ada Mgadla, were part of the team representing Multichoice Botswana (Proprietary) Limited.