Court orders APCON to vet Airtel adverts

THE Federal High Court, Lagos, has ordered the Advertising Practitioners Council of Nigeria (APCON) to statutorily vet advertising materials submitted to it by telecommunications firm, Airtel Networks Limited.

Justice M. N. Yunusa gave an order of interim injunction on May 24, compelling APCON to carry out its functions regarding Airtel’s advertising materials and restraining it and its agents or officers “from refusing vetting, approving or giving consideration to any advertisement whatsoever” from Airtel pending hearing of the motion on notice on June 13.

Yunusa also granted Airtel an order of certiorari “to quash the ruling and proceedings of the Advertising Standards Panel of May 3, 2103,” which prevents APCON from effecting the decisions of the Advertising Standards Panel, as well as an order of mandamus compelling performance of its statutory function.

Yunusa adjourned the case against APCON till June 13, 2013.

The orders followed a motion ex-parte deposed to on behalf of Airtel by Tinuola T. Ogundipe-Alatise on May 23 seeking the court’s leave to quash the proceedings of the Advertising Standards Panel, which had refused to vet advertising materials submitted to it by Airtel through its agency, STB-McCann.

APCON, in refusing to vet Airtel’s materials, had cited a court injunction ordering that the status quo be maintained in the dispute between its former advertising agency, Prima Garnet Communications, and its foreign affiliate, Ogilvy Africa.

Airtel had argued that APCON extended the ordinary interpretation of the status quo order by the court in the Prima Garnet versus Ogilvy Africa suit, which it argued had no bearing on its advertisement materials and vetting of same by the regulator.