Con Court slams Vodacom over false Please Call Me story
The Constitutional Court has slammed former Vodacom executives’ version of how the company’s ‘Please Call Me’ product started as a “lie”.
The Constitutional Court on Tuesday morning found Vodacom was bound by an agreement with Kenneth Nkosana Makate, the inventor of the Please Call Me concept.
Vodacom now has to negotiate with Makate about compensation for the multi-billion rand idea.
The court, in its judgment, said that “despite the product being a success, Vodacom did not negotiate compensation for the use of the applicant’s idea.”
And the judgment had harsh words for former Vodacom CEO Alan Knott-Craig and its ex-head of product development Philip Geissler.
“Instead, as the High Court later held, Messrs Knott-Craig, Vodacom’s CEO, and Geissler created a false narrative pertaining to the origin of the idea on which the ‘Please Call Me’ product was based,” said the Constitutional Court judgment.
“They dishonestly credited Mr Knott-Craig with the idea and this lie was perpetuated in the latter’s autobiography,” said the judgment, referring to the book ‘Second is Nothing’.
The court highlighted how Geissler, responding to an email from Knott-Craig, said on December 25 2009 that him and Knott-Craig came up with the idea. The email exchange happened after media had queried the correctness of the story.
But the Constitutional Court said Geissler’s response in 2009 “contradicted his earlier email of 9 February 2001 which was addressed to staff at Vodacom.”
In the email, Geissler said “Kenneth Makate from our Finance Department came up with this idea a few months ago and brought it to the Product Development Division. We wish to thank Kenneth for bringing his idea to our attention.”
The Constitutional Court further said that Vodacom’s managing director further acknowledged Makate for the idea in a newsletter published in March 2001.
“Despite these facts, Messrs Knott-Craig and Geissler later claimed that it was the CEO’s idea,” said the judgment.
“This untrue story appears to have been part of a stratagem to deny the applicant compensation for the idea.
“Vodacom first accused him of having stolen the idea from MTN, its competitor,” said the judgment.
Previous criticism
It’s not the first time that Knott-Craig and Geissler’s version of the Please Call Me story has come under the spotlight.
In 2014, the South Gauteng High Court found that Knott-Craig’s claim to have invented Please Call Me was implausible.
Judge Phillip Coppin, at the time, expressed concerns about Knott-Craig’s evidence.
In his judgment, Judge Coppin said: “In my view, Mr Knott-Craig was not frank and honest about his knowledge of (Mr Makate) and his idea and its link to the ‘Please Call Me’ product.”
Judge Coppin, though, dismissed Makate’s claim with costs as he said his application was lodged years too late. Makate’s first court bid on the matter occurred in 2008 after he said he invented the idea in 2001.
Knott-Craig left Vodacom in 2008. He then joined Cell C as its CEO in 2012 but he left in 2014 after suffering a stroke.
Geissler, meanwhile, left Vodacom in 2012 and he also spent a brief period at Cell C before going on academic leave in 2013, according to his LinkedIn profile.
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