Vodafone accused of interfering in ‘Please Call Me’ saga
‘Please Call Me’ (PCM) inventor Nkosana Makate has accused telecommunications multinational Vodafone, which is trying to intervene in his two-decade legal battle with Vodacom, of exaggerating the financial impact of his claim against the local company.
Makete last week filed papers in the Constitutional Court opposing an application by Vodafone – the majority shareholder in Vodacom – to be admitted as amicus curiae in the case.
Vodacom went to the Constitutional Court in February in a bid to quash a ruling by the SCA that it should make a new compensation offer to Makate for his PCM idea.
The Sunday Times reports that the SCA set aside a R47m offer that Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub made to Makate five years ago, and which he rejected.
Instead, it ordered Vodacom to pay Makate between 5% and 7.5% of the total voice revenue generated by the PCM service over an 18-year period from March 2001, plus interest.
Vodafone and Vodacom say this would translate to a payout of between R29bn and R63bn.
London-based Vodafone said in its friend of the court application that it wanted to ‘enrich the debate and subsequently contribute towards the effective, and indeed properly contextualised, disposal of the appeal’.
In his affidavit, Nickola Vidovich, Vodafone’s chief legal director, said the company sought to ‘offer a foreign shareholder and international investor’s perspective on the significance of the matter’.
‘This may well be a commercial dispute between two contracting parties, but certain commercial disputes (like this one) sometimes give rise to constitutional consequences for others,’ he said.
The Sunday Times notes that Makate said Vodafone’s application is premature as the apex court had not yet decided whether it would accept Vodacom’s application.
The inventor said Vodafone should have sought to get involved at a much earlier stage, and as a litigant, not a friend of the court.
‘Vodafone has known since the delivery of my founding affidavit in the review application in 2019, what kind of impact the order I was seeking would have, if my review application were successful. Vodafone elected to remain supine,’ Makate said.
Article disclaimer: While we have made every effort to ensure the accuracy of this article, it is not intended to provide final legal advice as facts and situations will differ from case to case, and therefore specific legal advice should be sought with a lawyer.
