Kenneth Nkosana Makate, who proposed a Please Call Me idea to Vodacom, wants R20 billion from the mobile operator.
The amount sounds preposterous, but it aligns with High Court and Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) rulings that backed Makate’s claim.
Makate, a Vodacom finance manager at the time, pitched his idea of a method to “buzz” someone else’s phone without airtime to a superior on 21 November 2000.
His idea was ultimately developed into Please Call Me, which launched on the Vodacom network in 2001.
Although Makate was not involved in the development or launch of the product, his manager had promised him compensation for the idea.
Makate wrote to Vodacom in 2007 demanding payment and launched legal action in 2008. Since then, there have been numerous court cases around the matter.
The case ultimately ended in front of the Constitutional Court, which ordered Vodacom and Makate’s teams to negotiate reasonable compensation in good faith.
Foreseeing the inevitable breakdown in talks, the Constitutional Court included a failsafe in its ruling that designated Joosub as the deadlock-breaker.
Joosub used several models to determine suitable compensation and arrived at an overall figure of R47 million, which Makate rejected and challenged in court.
Source: Daily Investor
