Settlement reached: Vodacom and Nkosana Makate end Please Call Me saga out of court
Nkosana Makate reached a settlement with Vodacom over Please Call Me feature.
Image: Timothy Bernard / Independent Newspapers
In a landmark resolution that brings closure to nearly two decades of legal battles, Vodacom has settled its contentious dispute with Kenneth Nkosana Makate over the widely popular Please Call Me feature.
This settlement, reached out of court on 4 November 2023, marks the end of a saga which started in 2001.
The case revolved around Makate's Please Call Me mechanism that was put into use by Vodacom.
What was intended to be a straightforward compensation agreement spiralled into a protracted legal battle. Makate argued that Vodacom had agreed to compensate him for his contribution, a claim that the company staunchly denied. The first significant judgement came in 2014 from the Gauteng High Court, which confirmed the existence of a contract between the two parties but ruled that Vodacom was not bound by it.
Undeterred, Makate appealed the decision, leading to a drawn-out process that saw the case traverse various levels of the judiciary.
In a pivotal ruling in 2016, South Africa’s Constitutional Court determined that Makate was indeed entitled to negotiate for reasonable compensation based on his idea. The court mandated that if negotiations faltered, Vodacom’s CEO, Shameel Joosub, would make the final call on the compensation amount.
Negotiations took a turbulent turn when Joosub's offer of R47 million was turned down by Makate, who argued that the worth of his idea far exceeded that sum. The legal tussle intensified, culminating in a February 2024 ruling from the Supreme Court of Appeal, which ruled that Makate was entitled to between 5% and 7.5% of the revenue generated from the Please Call Me service over an 18-year period—a potential sum that could have run into billions of rand.
Faced with the prospect of hefty payments, Vodacom sought leave to appeal this ruling. Yet, in an unexpected change of course, the telecommunications giant announced on Thursday, November 5, 2025, that its board had approved a settlement agreement, thus withdrawing its appeal and abandoning the February judgement in the High Court.
While specific details of the settlement remain undisclosed, Vodacom expressed satisfaction that the matter had reached a conclusion, stating, "shareholders are hereby advised that on 4 November 2025, the Vodacom Board approved a settlement agreement, and the matter was settled by the parties out of court. The parties are glad that finality has been reached in this regard."
The recent settlement has already been factored into the company's interim results for the six months ending September 30, 2025.
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