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Vodacom will approach the Constitutional Court in a bid to challenge a Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) ruling that it has to determine new compensation for 'Please Call Me' inventor, Nkosana Makate, who is entitled to a percentage of the revenue generated from the service for 18 years.
"Vodacom is surprised and disappointed with the judgment and will bring an application for leave to appeal before the Constitutional Court of South Africa within the prescribed period," SA's largest mobile operator said in a statement on Wednesday morning.
On Tuesday, the SCA dismissed Vodacom's application for leave to appeal a previous ruling by the High Court in Pretoria, but also substituted parts of that ruling, including setting aside a R47-million determination made by Vodacom CEO Shameel Joosub.
It ruled that Vodacom now had to determine a new offer where Makate is entitled to be paid 5% to 7.5% of the total revenue of the product. This must also account for the time value of money, calculated at an interest rate 5% a year from March 2001 to February 2019.
Joosub was ordered to finalise this new offer within one month of the order.
Joosub had initially capped the contract with Makate at five years. The SCA noted that the compensation amount offered by Joosub had been determined based on this term, but the Please Call Me product had been generating revenue for far longer than that. "This irregularity renders the CEO's determination unreasonable and patently inequitable."
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 system, which he invented while employed by Vodacom, had earned the company about R70 billion in revenue.
