Nkosana Makate, the inventor of the “Please Call Me” idea, has pushed back against a court challenge from British Virgin Islands company Black Rock claiming entitlement to 40% of his Vodacom payout.
Errol Elsdon, the former director of Black Rock, initiated an urgent application at the Johannesburg high court this week to interdict Vodacom from paying the undisclosed settlement with Makate into any account other than that of his attorneys, Stemela & Lubbe Inc.
Elsdon, from the UK, wants Makate’s attorneys to withhold 40% of the payout, which he claims Black Rock is entitled to but has been disputed for a decade.
The settlement is estimated to be worth more than R600m.
Elsdon’s claim emanates from an agreement that the late Christiaan Schoeman had with Makate to fund his legal costs in the litigation against Vodacom, which spanned almost two decades before a settlement was reached this month.
Schoeman signed the agreement on behalf of the company.
Makate, in his legal papers filed this week, does not dispute entering into an agreement with the company but argues the company never fulfilled its legal obligations and terminated the agreement in 2015.
“An initial amount of money was paid to Ms Lubbe in 2011 for the purpose of paying my legal representatives. Not a cent has been paid since the paltry amount of R7,853.00 by Mr Schoeman on December 4 2014,” Makate says.
Elsdon, in his legal papers, says he, Schoeman and Tracey Roscher raised an initial amount of R500,000 and paid it to Makate’s attorneys.
He argues that in 2013 he raised R3.7m from Global Distressed Alpha III and paid R2.4m to Makate’s attorneys.
“I challenge Elsdon to demonstrate a single payment that the applicant has made in contributing to this litigation in the last 14 years. Black Rock now wishing to share in the spoils is an utter disgrace,” Makate argues in his rebuttal.
“I have only managed to pursue my case against Vodacom because certain members of my legal team have generously supported me for more than 10 years during numerous hearings.”
Makate maintains he incurred financial obligations with a bank for various other litigation expenses, such as experts.
“Just to give the court a snapshot of the costs. The bill of costs presented to me by Vodacom, only for the November 2024 Constitutional Court hearing, was in excess of R12m, something which Black Rock should have indemnified me against but never did. It cannot. It owns nothing.”
Makate and Elsdon began litigating over the agreement in 2015 and the inventor partially won the case.
Elsdon argues this was because his company, Black Rock, was deregistered in April 2014 “due to failure to pay annual fees” and the agreement was then transferred to another company, Raining Men Trade, also owned by Elsdon. That process was found to have been fraudulent, with an arbitrator finding that the only valid agreement was with Black Rock.
“Elsdon and Schoeman misrepresented that the funder then changed to Raining Men Ltd. In the arbitration proceedings to which Black Rock refers, it was found that my signature was forged on the agreement nominating Raining Men and that it was invalid,” Makate’s papers read.
Makate describes his introduction to Schoeman and Elsdon as “unfortunate”.
“My introduction to late Schoeman and Elsdon and Ms Roscher is one of the most unfortunate incidents of life. I have found the three of them to be dishonest and fraudsters.”
Makate contends the court should dismiss the urgent application, which has effectively led to the withholding of his payout, citing the legal proceedings are not urgent.
“I could have successfully dismissed that claim [40% entitlement] but could not when it was withdrawn. Now Black Rock is preventing payment of a claim I have waited for for two decades.”
The urgent application will be heard next week.
