Please Call Me inventor Nkosana Makate feels “motivated” after he was granted a date by the Supreme Court of Appeal for the next chapter of his protracted legal battle with Vodacom.
Makate and Vodacom will make another trip to the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein next month to lock horns before five judges.
Justice Connie Mocumie, Ashton Schippers, Selewe Mothle, Zamani Nhlangulela and Fayeeza Kathree-Setiloane have been allocated the appeal case, which will be held on May 9.
Speaking to TimesLIVE Premium, Makate said he was optimistic and motivated now that the second highest court in the land has afforded his matter a date and allocated judges.
“It’s normal to be tired, but I am really motivated that the Supreme Court of Appeal gave us an early time which allows us to deal with this matter once and for all. I was pleasantly surprised at the time provided by the court,” Makate said.
Makate first went to court in 2008, after Vodacom had apparently backtracked on an undertaking to give him a share of profits. The Constitutional Court found in Makate’s favour and in April 2016 ordered the two sides to negotiate “reasonable” compensation.
In papers before the SCA, which the TimesLIVE Premium has seen, Vodacom argued that the Pretoria high court erred in setting aside the initial R47m determination made by its CEO, Shameel Joosub.
Makate is, however, very optimistic that the SCA will bring an end to the matter that has dominated most of his adult life.
I am hoping that it (SCA) provides Vodacom with very strict directives to finalise this matter once and for all and in a timely manner ... I am glad they did not delay in setting the matter down.
— Nkosana Makate, Please Call Me inventor
“I am hoping that it [SCA] provides Vodacom with very strict directives to finalise this matter once and for all and in a timely manner ... I am glad they did not delay in setting the matter down. It shows we have a sensitive judiciary given how long this matter has been in our courts,” Makate said.
He added: “As justice [Sisi] Khampepe once said, ‘you cannot litigate forever, and litigation must end at some point.’”
Makate and Vodacom’s latest legal dispute is centred on the R47m compensation that Joosub made in January 2019, after protracted negotiations.
The inventor had rejected the R47m, saying it’s way lower than what he believes he deserves for his idea which raked in billions for the company.
Makate has shot down suggestions that he’s rejected Vodacom’s R47m because he may be indebted to lawyers who have represented him over the years in the legal battle.
“I’m on a contingency agreement. I don’t owe lawyers billions. I owe them a percentage in terms of what they need to get,” Makate said.
“There’s no stress that’s being caused [by owing lawyers],” Makate said.
Vodacom argued in court papers before the SCA that Joosub considered four ways to determine what compensation Makate should receive. In terms of the “2001 looking-forward model”, Joosub put himself in the shoes of a CEO in 2001 who had to set a compensation amount. The present-day calculation in this model came to R51.5m.
Another method, “an employee reward model” — preferred by Vodacom — arrived at R21.8m. Under the “time value lock model”, compensation would be R38.1m, and under Vodacom’s “revenue-share model looking backward” it would be R42.2m.
However, away from the SCA, Makate still awaits a decision of the Pretoria high court in a separate matter brought to court by Vodacom as it seeks to have a 2020 court ruling, which directed the company to hand him copies of contracts, amended.
Vodacom wants the court to reword the order it granted Makate because it was not in possession of all the contracts the court ordered to be handed over to the Please Call Me inventor. Of the 18 contracts specified, Vodacom only supplied Makate with 11. It said it could not locate the other seven.
Makate said he believes this was a “moot” issue, which he was not even worried about.
“The matter is moot as we argued and has no bearing on the SCA process. Vodacom never argued before deputy judge president Aubrey Ledwaba that it affects the SCA process in any way,” Makate stated.
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