Media Must Not Be Allowed to Sell Public Trust to the Highest Bidder

May 2 , 2026
By Daniel Fikadu

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For years, the principle of Caveat Emptor (buyer beware) has defined many commercial interactions. The recent ruling against EBS and EBC signalled a move away from this tradition. The law is increasingly recognising the role that media houses play in amplifying falsehoods, with televised claims viewed as inherently credible by many consumers. By enforcing professional responsibility, Courts seek to protect the public from those who rent public trust to facilitate deception.

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The Federal Supreme Court Cassation Bench’s ruling on media liability marked a sharp turn in how Ethiopian law treats broadcasters. By holding Ethiopian Broadcasting Service (EBS) and Ethiopian Broadcasting Corporation (EBC) liable for 25pc of the damages caused by Zuna Trading Plc, a third-party trader, the Justices drew a line around broadcasting.

The airwaves, they reasoned, could not be treated as a lawless frontier.

For years, the principle of "Caveat Emptor" (buyer beware) has defined many commercial interactions. The recent ruling against EBS and EBC signalled a move away from this tradition. The law is increasingly recognising the role that media houses play in amplifying falsehoods, with many consumers viewing televised claims as inherently credible. By enforcing professional responsibility, Courts seek to protect the public from those who rent public trust to facilitate deception.

The House of Federation (HoF) has reportedly moved to repeal or freeze the precedent. Its concern appears to be that media houses could face large claims for advertisers’ misconduct. That concern is not trivial. But the Cassation Bench did not turn broadcasters into insurers for every failed business deal. It asked whether they ignored a basic duty when a claim was easy to check.

Zuna Trading’s statement was simple and verifiable. It advertised that vehicles had arrived when they had not. The broadcasters carried the advertisements without checking them, and buyers who relied on that information were harmed. Advertisement law requires broadcasters to verify the "accuracy of advertisements before broadcasting." It also treats an advertisement as “misleading” when it claims products are available, even though they are not.

This made the broadcasters' conduct more than a clerical mistake. It was a breach of statutory duty, and a failure to perform a statutory duty. The civil law and the advertisement proclamation treat the breach of a specific legal duty as a fault, whether or not the party intended to cause harm. The issue was not whether EBS and EBC had planned the deception, but whether they failed to do what the law required before taking money to air the message.

However, the harder question remains the remedy. The dispute was whether administrative fines under the advertisement law should be the only consequence. The Cassation Bench rejected that view, with the Justices arguing that a fine paid to the state does not compensate victims. Where a breach of law causes harm, civil liability fills the gap. Otherwise, broadcasters could pay a small penalty to the government while defrauded citizens receive nothing.

The Court’s one-fourth allocation of liability was limited. Granted, the broadcasters were not liable for the entire loss, as Zuna Trading remained the primary culprit. However, their negligence was treated as the “vehicle” that carried the deception into homes and made it credible. The ruling did not say media houses should guarantee every promise made by an advertiser. It said they may be liable when a claim is clear, material and easy to check, yet goes unchecked.

The House of Federation's reported intervention risks weakening that discipline. If broadcasters face no civil consequence for airing false commercial claims, the incentive to screen paying clients falls. Any "fly-by-night" trader with an advertising budget could lend institutional credibility to deceptive claims through radio and television, leaving consumers to bear the cost when the promise collapses.

The broader framework also matters. The constitutional and consumer-protection rules give weight to public protection, not unchecked “commercial freedom.” Many consumers treat televised claims as credible. The law, therefore, cannot ignore the role media houses play in amplifying falsehoods.

The same logic would likely apply more strongly to financial technology. If broadcasters, digital platforms, or channels promoted unlicensed digital banks or crypto schemes, the duty of care would be harder to dismiss. Losses in digital finance can spread quickly and affect many people. An advertisement may not merely persuade viewers. It may connect them directly to financial loss.

The House of Federation would face a harder balance. It may want to protect “innovation,” but a fintech scam can damage more than individual victims and weaken confidence in digital finance and the wider economy. In such cases, the reasoning used by the Justices at the Cassation Bench would probably carry more force, not less.

The ruling was more than a dispute over one trader’s false advertisement. It moved Ethiopian law away from Caveat Emptor, or Buyer Beware, and toward professional responsibility. The messenger should be protected. But not when the messenger profits from a lie and a breach of statutory duty that could have been checked. That is the narrow and practical principle at stake.

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PUBLISHED ON May 02,2026 [ VOL 27 , NO 1357]

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