It took experts, including lawyers in the US, hefty legal expenses and more than two years to resolve a dispute over control of a sushi restaurant's Facebook page.
Bonny Levi and Mehdi Pakdoust were co-owners of Nuri Sushi in Cape Town.
“As the name suggests, it is a sushi restaurant. And like sushi that had stood in the sun too long, their relationship went sour,” read the latest chapter of the prolonged dispute, in a judgment handed down on Friday by Western Cape High Court acting judge Michael Bishop.
“The details are not before me, save for one. It concerns Facebook and it has led to a Meta dispute spanning continents. In the end, it turned out it was all the fault of Zane the marketing manager.
The restaurant's Facebook page was a valuable asset along with about “11,000 hungry followers”. Pakdoust was the page administrator but Levi also acted as an administrator through another Facebook account, Eastern Food Bazaar.
“An administrator of a Facebook page has many powers. He can add content to the page. He can invite other Facebook users to become administrators of the page. And he has the awesome ability to remove existing administrators.
“That is what Pakdoust did to Levi,” read the judgment.
Levi’s agent Eastern Food Bazaar was removed as an administrator in April 2021. “This seems to be have been the culmination of the dispute between the parties about Nuri Sushi.”
A month later, Levi agreed to buy Pakdoust’s share in Nuri Sushi for R1.5m. Pakdoust agreed to disengage from any social media platform related to the restaurant and remove himself as the administrator.
“This seems like a relatively simple clause. Pakdoust was required to transfer control of the Nuri Sushi Facebook page to Levi. But it does not translate accurately into Facebook lingo,” said Bishop.
“What Facebook required to transfer control was for Pakdoust to make Levi (or his agent) an administrator, and then remove himself as an administrator. It could not be achieved through the handing over of 'passwords and access information'.
“It took two experts and American lawyers to figure out how to actually achieve something that ought to have been easy.”
This created something of a Facebook-22. Pakdoust was no longer an administrator. Neither was Eastern Food Bazaar.
— Acting judge Michael Bishop
Pakdoust claimed he invited Eastern Food Bazaar to be an administrator, and then removed himself as administrator. From his perspective, his job was done. But Eastern Food Bazaar never received such a notification and thus could not become an administrator.
“This created something of a Facebook-22. Pakdoust was no longer an administrator. Neither was Eastern Food Bazaar. But a Facebook page could not exist without an administrator. But it did – the page was still available to view for its 11,000 followers and anybody else trawling through Facebook for sushi in Cape Town,” said Bishop.
Correspondence went back and forth to no avail.
Levi eventually instituted arbitration proceedings against Pakdoust, that his claim was in delict, based on a fraudulent or negligent misrepresentation. Levi sought R500,000 in damages, calculated as the premium he paid for control of the Facebook page.
Two experts submitted reports on the puzzling situation during arbitration in September 2022. They “agreed that an administrator cannot remove himself as an administrator of a Facebook page without first appointing another administrator. Without an administrator, the page cannot exist. The Nuri Sushi page exists, therefore there is an administrator. Sum administrator, ergo sum. Pakdoust had removed himself as an administrator. There was no record of a notification to Eastern Food Bazaar to become an administrator.”
One inference to be drawn was that Pakdoust “removed himself as administrator and appointed an unknown account as administrator”. But there was no clarity as to what transpired around [his] removal as administrator of the page.
The parties were unhappy with the outcome of arbitration. Pakdoust was dissatisfied with the implication created that he had acted dishonestly. To establish what happened, he appointed lawyers in the US to engage directly with Meta.
Facebook’s attorneys reported to Pakdoust’s attorneys in April that “the requested administrator your client wishes to have added to the page, Facebook user ‘Mahdi Pakdoust’, should still have administrator rights through the business manager connected to the page.”
There was a back door. They told Pakdoust how to regain his status as administrator.
“Enter Zane, a marketing manager for Nuri Sushi. It seems that, at some unknown point, Zane created the Meta business manager page, without informing anyone. Zane made himself and Pakdoust administrators. Nobody – not Levi or Pakdoust or the Facebook experts – knew about the business manager page. It seems to account for how the Facebook page could continue to exist, despite Pakdoust having removed himself as an administrator,” read the judgment.
Pakdoust’s attorneys then reported: “We confirm that our client has regained administrator access to the Facebook page.”
Levi obtained, through a subpoena to Facebook's attorneys, its correspondence with Pakdoust’s attorneys which confirmed it was possible for Pakdoust to make Eastern Food Bazaar an administrator. “It is enough to say about the correspondence that despite having the power to do so, Pakdoust did not do so,” read the judgment.
The parties then found themselves in the high court, with Levi seeking an order compelling his former business partner to make him page administrator.
“Pakdoust is in the practical position that he can make Levi the administrator and remove himself. He is, in real terms, still an administrator, even if he has to click his mouse a few times first before he can exercise those powers. He is one of only two people in the world – Zane is the other – who has that power.
“The position is exactly the same as if Pakdoust held the keys to Nuri Sushi’s office and refused to return them after selling the business.
“Pakdoust agreed to make Levi the administrator of the Facebook page. Because of Zane’s presumably well-intentioned changes, he was technically unable to do so – until Meta told him how in April. Since then, he has been able to make Levi the administrator, and has refused to do so without further payment in the form of Levi compromising costs awards. Pakdoust was not entitled to any further payment.”
Pakdoust was ordered to make Levi page administrator.
TimesLIVE
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