South Africa’s Competition Commission has referred MultiChoice and decoder manufacturer Altech UEC to the Competition Tribunal for prosecution over an alleged market-division agreement struck more than a decade ago that may have kept pay-television competition artificially suppressed.
The complaint was formally lodged with the Tribunal on April 15, 2026, though the conduct at the centre of the case dates to February 2014, when investigators say the two companies reached an agreement for Altech not to enter or compete in the pay-TV market where MultiChoice operates.
At the heart of the case is the supplier relationship between the two firms. MultiChoice, the dominant provider of subscription television services, sources its set-top boxes (STBs) from Altech, which manufactures the decoders used to access pay-TV content. The Competition Commission argues this commercial dependency may have shaped the alleged arrangement, effectively keeping Altech as a supplier rather than allowing it to become a competitor.
The Commission is seeking an order declaring that both companies breached Section 4(1)(b)(ii) of the Competition Act of 1998, which prohibits agreements between competitors that allocate customers, suppliers, or specific types of goods and services. If the Tribunal rules against the companies, each faces an administrative penalty of up to 10 percent of its respective annual turnover.
MultiChoice’s South African revenue makes the potential financial exposure significant. The company is now a unit of French broadcaster Canal+, which completed its acquisition of MultiChoice following delisting from the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) in December 2025.
The case also casts a retrospective shadow over the short-lived Altech Node, a satellite-connected smart home and video-on-demand device launched in 2014 and positioned explicitly as not competing with MultiChoice’s core DStv service. The product was discontinued by mid-2015.
Altech UEC was subsequently sold by JSE-listed Altron in 2019 to Skyblu Technologies, which is controlled by major Chinese consumer electronics firm Shenzhen Skyworth Digital Technology. Altron has said it cooperated fully with the Commission’s investigation and remains committed to legal and ethical business conduct.
The referral comes as MultiChoice faces separate regulatory scrutiny. In March 2026, MultiChoice announced plans to shut down its streaming service Showmax at the end of April, a decision the Commission said it would also investigate.
