Please wait for Please Call Me judgment

R47M REJECTED; INVENTOR SEEKS R10BN-PLUS ConCourt-ordered ‘reasonable compensation’ from Vodacom is questioned.

For Please Call Me inventor Nkosana Makate, the time for talk with Vodacom is over and he now wants a judge to make the call on how much the mobile giant owes him for his brainchild.

In 2016 – on the back of what was at that time already a protracted legal battle – the Constitutional Court ordered Vodacom to negotiate a “reasonable compensation” with Makate.

But five years on, the two are still at loggerheads over what exactly a “reasonable compensation” is, with Makate’s lawyers describing the latest offer of R47 million as “a fraction of the billions and billions of rands Vodacom has raked in from the idea”.

So now Makate has gone back to court in the hopes of getting a judge to make the decision.

He has brought an application not only to review the R47 million offer, but to substitute it with one he believes should be closer to R10 billion, plus interest.

The courts are generally wary of handing down substitution orders but when the case came before Judge Wendy Hughes in the High Court in Pretoria yesterday, Makate’s legal team argued there were “exceptional circumstances” at play.

Gilbert Marcus, one of three senior advocates arguing his case, pointed to, among others, “the sheer history and duration of the matter” and emphasised “the need for the matter to be brought to finality”.

“The saga has now been going on for more than 20 years,” Marcus said, accusing Vodacom of either trying to deprive Makate “of any entitlement at all”, or “leave him with the absolute minimum possible”.

Makate is willing to accept an order remitting the decision back to Vodacom chief executive officer Shameel Joosub, subject to “very strict” guidelines being attached.

The case landed up in the Constitutional Court which, at the time, considered the possibility that the negotiations might prove unsuccessful and ordered in that case, the CEO of Vodacom step in and make a “determination of the amount within a reasonable time”. That happened, but the issue in question now is how he arrived at the figure of R47 million.

The hearing is expected to span the better part of this week and has been set down until tomorrow.