Pretoria - Vodacom this week obtained leave to appeal against the judgment delivered by the Gauteng High Court, Pretoria in February, in which a judge ordered Vodacom’s CEO Shameel Joosub to go back to the drawing board to calculate exactly what “Please Call Me” (PCM) inventor Nkosana Makate should get for his invention.
Judge Wendy Hughes this week gave Vodacom the green light to turn to the Supreme Court of Appeal in a bid to overturn her judgment.
She earlier found that Makate was short changed by the cellphone giant and that Joosub should recalculate what revenue Vodacom has generated from Makate’s invention.
Makate is meanwhile patient while yet another legal battle lies ahead. “We always knew that Vodacom will appeal and we are prepared for the SCA and the ConCourt if need be,” he told the Pretoria News.
In her judgment delivered in February, Judge Hughes gave Joosub two weeks to go back to the drawing board and to calculate what amount Makate was actually owed for his invention.
Vodacom subsequently, in a 26-page document, cited various reasons why it believed another court would come to a different finding than that of Judge Hughes.
While still standing by her judgment, Judge Hughes said to avoid uncertainty and confusion in law, another court should take another look at her judgment. She said this would also be in the interest of justice so that this matter can come to finality.
“The grounds advanced by Vodacom are fashioned such that there are reasonable prospects to succeed and that there are compelling reasons and that it is in the interest of justice…,” the judge said.
The judge earlier made it clear in her judgment that the calculations used by Joosub in offering Makate R47 million, for what the judge called a brilliant invention, was by far too conservative.
While she said Vodacom was in a better position than the court to calculate the true worth of the invention, she gave certain guidelines of what must be taken into account when the amount due to him is recalculated.
While Vodacom argued that the R47-million it determined Makate’s invention was worth, was “generous”, the Makate camp argued that this was totally inadequate and that the CEO did not take all the factors into account when he derived this amount.
“It is not correct that I did not consider whether Mr Makate’s award was patently inequitable, as contended by Vodacom… The equitability of the determination and the consequence thereof was dealt with in great detail.”
Makate has fought a legal battle against Vodacom for nearly two decades to be fairly compensated for his invention.
The battle even turned to the Constitutional Court, which in 2016 ordered Vodacom to reach a fair settlement with Makate.
Pretoria News