By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The North Gauteng High Court has given mobile operator Vodacom one month to make “a fresh determination” to Please Call Me (PCM) inventor Nkosana Makate using guidelines issued by the court.
The ruling delivered electronically on Monday comes after Makate hauled Vodacom back to court after he rejected the cellphone giant’s compensation offer of R47m which was made in 2019.
CEO of Vodacom, Shameel Joosub was directed to make a fresh determination of Makate’s payment of 5% of the total voice revenue generated from the ‘Please Call Me’ service and the total voice revenue revenue derived from prepaid, contract and interconnect fees.
The court also ordered that Makate is entitled to 27% of the revenue generated by the return of calls sent through the Please Call Me platform. Judge Wendy Hughes ordered Joosub, to finalise the determination within a month of this order.
But the company has indicated that it will appeal the judgment.
“Vodacom remains of the view its negotiations with Makate were held in good faith, as determined in the order of the Constitutional Court issued on 26 April 2019,” the company said on Tuesday, vowing to appeal the judgment.
The Constitutional Court had ordered Vodacom to negotiate in good faith and that reasonable compensation had to be paid to Makate for PCM.
The Please Call Me service, which was launched in February 2001, allowed Vodacom subscribers to send a ‘Please Call Me’ text message free of charge to another user on the same network. Makate had in previous court hearings stated that the Please Call Me system, which he invented while employed by Vodacom, had earned the company about R70 billion in revenue.
Makate and Vodacom have been involved in the protracted court battle over payment for the concept since 2008.