Cape Town — The advocate arguing on behalf of Vodacom in the case against ‘Please Call Me’ inventor, Nkosana Makate, said the R47 million compensation, now standing at R80 million, offered by his client was a generous offer.
According to Vodacom counsel, Wim Trentgrove, the offer made by Vodacom now stands at R80 million after interest. He said that by the time Vodacom had rolled out Makate’s idea, it had already lost its novelty as MTN had been the first company to roll it out, TimesLIVE reported.
Vodacom argued in its leave to appeal application to convince the apex court to overturn the decision by the Supreme Court of the Appeal (SCA) which ruled in favour of Makate, setting aside the R47 million compensation Makate rejected in 2019.
The SCA ordered Vodacom to offer Makate R9.4 billion or more, while he is happy to accept R9.4 billion. Trengrove said Make’s idea was “worthy of compensation: but it was wrong to assume that the idea was the cause of all the revenue created by the ‘Please Call Me’ service, which had already been in public service.
He said that Vodacom likely would have taken the idea from MTN if that had not benefitted from Makate’s idea. He said the SCA’s ruling in favour of Makate was a “fundamental failure of justice.
[WATCH] “It didn’t say that the compensation must be paid to him for as long as #PleaseCallMe earns revenue.” Arguing for Vodacom in the Constitutional Court, Adv. Wim Trengove deals with the 2016 court order for #PleaseCallMe inventor Nkosana Makate’s compensation. pic.twitter.com/U4LgWsIUrQ
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According to The Citizen, Trengrove argued that Vodacom’s CEO is the only person to determine Makate’s compensation. The SCA ruled Vodacom should pay Makate between 5 and 7.5% of all revenue generated since 2001, which it rejected.
“Having considered the SCA judgment and order, it is Vodacom’s view that there are key aspects of this matter which do not accord with the spirit of the law and that the judgment and order are fundamentally flawed,” Vodacom said in a statement at the time.
The minority judgement of the SCA ruled that Makate’s compensation would be about R186 million, while the majority judgment placed it between R29 billion and R63 billion. Trengove says these amounts will significantly impact Vodacom.
“Vodacom submits that it is in the interest of justice that it be granted leave to appeal. It has reasonable prospects of success on appeal. The majority judgment, if left undisputed, will moreover have a profound impact on Vodacom, its shareholders, suppliers, customers and the societies in which it operates,” he said.
He said the figure of Makate’s compensation depends on “the interpretation of the order. But the figure needn’t be calculated. If you look at the attachments to Mr Makate’s notice of motion, then you will see that he attaches various permutations of his order and they yield numbers ranging from R9 billion to R63 billion.”
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Compiled by Matthew Petersen
