Culled from Thisday Nnewspaper
According to Thisday News Paper of Monday 29th February 2016, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) has fined MTN Nigeria and Globacom (Glo) a total of N34 million for breach of the Mobile Number portability (MNP) business rules and regulations. NCC noted that of the N34 million sanction for number porting breach Globacom was fined N22 million, whilst MTN was fined N12 million.
Read more at http://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2016/02/29/ncc-fines-glo-mtn-n34m-for-non-compliance-with-number-portability-rules/.
Note that in 2015, NCC had also fined the South Africa telecom Giant, MTN the sum of N1.04 trillion for failure to deactivate unregistered users of MTN Simcards with the stipulated timeframe. The imposition of the fine led to negotiations between MTN Nigeria and NCC on how to reduce the imposed fine. MTN had even sought legal action after exhausting its options to get the fine reduced.
Read more at http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/12/n1-4trn-fine-mtn-refuses-to-pay-challenges-ncc-in-court/.
With the imposition of these two fines within a short time frame (2015 and 2016) it becomes pertinent to ask, Is the use of fines the only way MTN would comply with the rules and guidelines set out by NCC in its operation in Nigeria?
The A & E Law Partnership Blog 
Yes. It can be one of the most effective ways of securing business compliance to laws and rules. The US Securities and Exchange Commission has shown the example of effectively deploying fines to dissuade wrong conduct by companies even where such wrong conduct i highly profitable. There is no doubt that courts often find it difficult to impose dissuasive custodial sentence for crimes and offenses that are administrative in nature. The FCPA has enabled the US SEC has deploy a carrot and stick combination including well targeted severe fines that deny a culprit the fruits of wrong conduct and favorable presumption for self reporting and self deployment of measures to forestall future corruption risks. I think that not only NCC but most regulatory agencies in Nigeria will do well to consider seeking legal powers to deploy such tools.
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