The man who claims to have bankrolled Nkosana Makate's landmark ‘Please Call Me’ litigation against Vodacom has announced defamation proceedings against Makate, reports IoL.

Errol Elsdon, a businessman and former director of Black Rock Mining Ltd, confirmed yesterday that he has instructed his attorneys to institute defamation action against Makate, following statements published on 7 June, in which Elsdon says he was falsely portrayed as a fraudster and has claimed that he will expose, in open court, the full financial architecture behind one of SA’s most celebrated corporate battles.

The ‘Please Call Me’ saga has long been framed as the story of a lone underdog taking on a telecoms giant.

Makate, a former Vodacom employee who claims he invented the service without compensation, eventually secured a settlement reported at R1bn.

But Elsdon's statement sharply contests that narrative.

According to Elsdon, when Makate first approached him and the late Christiaan Schoeman in 2011, the claim was unfunded, untested, and stalled.

More critically, Elsdon alleges that the original legal framing of the case was fundamentally flawed, and that the 'cause of action was substantially reworked’ over the weeks following their first meeting before any funding was committed.

The dispute now before the High Court centres on the proceeds of the Vodacom settlement and whether Black Rock, as the nominated funding vehicle, is entitled to its contractual share.

Elsdon's position rests on a written funding agreement concluded in 2011, under which Black Rock was designated the funding party.

He says an arbitrator has since confirmed that Black Rock was the only entity validly nominated under that agreement.

Makate has reportedly characterised the enforcement of the agreement as extortion, an allegation Elsdon has rejected.

Full IoL report