Vodacom is seeking leave to appeal the ruling that ordered it to hand over key documents detailing 18 years of revenue records to Please Call Me inventor Nkosana Makate.
Makate scored a major victory last month against the telecoms giant that owes him for his pioneering invention, as Judge Jody Kollapen ruled in favour of his interlocutory application at the North Gauteng High Court, Pretoria.
Judge Kollapen ordered that Vodacom must divulge financial and contractual data to Makate, which he needed to prove he was owed more than R47million.
This is the amount that the telecoms giant decided to pay Makate for his invention in line with the 2016 Constitutional Court ruling that he should be compensated.
The apex court ordered the parties to negotiate in good faith and determine reasonable compensation.
The negotiations did not bear fruit, with Makate accusing Vodacom of not acting in good faith by withholding revenue information from him.
Makate rejected an offer of R47m made by Vodacom chief executive Shameel Joosub in January last year.
He held that he was entitled to no less than R20billion, taking into account revenue Vodacom generated from the Please Call Me service between 2001 and 2018.
Judge Kollapen ordered Vodacom to give Makate the 18 years of records he needed to prove the extent of his claim. These included revenue statements and contracts Vodacom entered into with other service providers.
Vodacom has resolved to drag Judge Kollapen’s ruling to the Supreme Court of Appeal.
It filed notice at the North Gauteng High Court this week arguing that the ruling was erroneous.
The group argued that it no longer had in its archives the data that Judge Kollapen ordered it to give Makate.
It said in the notice papers: “The learned judge should have found that the applicant no longer possessed the raw data underlying the voice revenue figures appearing in an aggregated manner in their annual financial statements for the years 2001 to 2018, and could therefore not produce (the) same.”
“The first respondent (Makate) was not entitled to rely on the ‘untested’ statement of an ex-employee, Teboho Motaung, as to the applicant’s ability to extract information from its records and systems.”
Vodacom also held that Makate did not make a case for specific and identified contracts in his founding and replying affidavits. The group said Makate simply made a wish list of contracts he wanted.
“Given the failure by (Makate) to have identified the contracts in his affidavit, the applicant (Vodacom) has been deprived of the opportunity of producing evidence establishing whether and to what extent all or any of the contracts existed, and their relevance,” said the papers.
Makate told The Star on Tuesday that his legal team was yet to meet and chart a response to Vodacom’s leave to appeal application.
“But we will most likely oppose the appeal,” he added.