A South African man has come out of a 14-year court battle against a huge corporate opponent. Many are calling it a testimony to the idea that it is sometimes worth fighting on.
Nkosana Makate’s is now in line for a pay-out worth millions of dollars after a long legal struggle with mobile telecoms giant Vodacom.
Makate took the company to court when he felt that he had not been properly compensated for an idea of his that made the company millions of dollars, he refused to be silent.
Two decades ago, he came up with the concept that went on to become Vodacom’s Please Call Me texting service, which allows customers to send a free message to another user on the same network requesting to be called back.
Mr Makate said “Patience, loyalty, and being fair in all my dealings rank very high in my world, I live by those values,”
Mr Makate credited his idea to his wife Rebecca, who was the inspiration for the Please Call Me concept.
Twenty-two years ago Mr Makate was working as a trainee in Vodacom’s finance department.
He entered into a verbal agreement with the company’s then-director of product development and management, Philip Geissler, that he would get a share of the revenue generated by the product once it went to market.
At the time, the firm even shared an internal newsletter praising him for the concept. But something changed at some point and it is not clear why.
“Suddenly I was told that I’m being greedy for wanting a share of the profits from what I created,” said Mr Makate.
Instead of accepting the situation and deciding it was not worth taking on Vodacom, he went to court in 2008.
A team of experts estimates that Vodacom made at least $4.7bn (£3.4bn) from Please Call Me and he has not seen a cent of those profits. Mr. Makate has been asking for 15% of that.
The company initially denied that their ex-employee had come up with the idea and later decided that he was not due any financial benefits from it.
The case went through a number of courts before eventually, in 2016, it ended up in the highest court, the Constitutional Court, which found in Mr Makate’s favor and ordered the two sides to negotiate remuneration.
The company offered a settlement of $3.1m saying it was “overly generous”, but he rejected it.
“For me, it’s about what is right, what is fair and it’s about justice. What they are doing is wrong and I cannot allow that,” he said explaining how he turned his back on an offer that would have made him a very rich man.
“The figure they offered really makes no sense because it was nowhere near what I was owed.
“I’m happy we persisted with the court review because we have now been vindicated,” he said. Earlier this month, High Court judge Wendy Hughes said that Vodacom had gone against the Constitutional Court ruling and negotiated in bad faith.
Hughes also said he was entitled to a much bigger share of the revenue, which could run into the tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars.
Vodacom has been ordered to come back with a new figure. It has said it will appeal against the decision, adding that it had negotiated in good faith.
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