Vodacom settles 17-year legal dispute over call-back service

The telecoms group of South Africa, Vodacom, said on Wednesday it had reached an out-of-court settlement in a dispute with a former employee over his role in creating the company’s call-back messaging service.

The legal battle over the “Please Call Me” service has dragged on for about 17 years, reaching South Africa’s highest court.

“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,” Vodacom said in a statement on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange.

Vodacom, a unit of Britain’s Vodafone, did not disclose the settlement amount.

The settlement will be accounted for in its financial results for the six months to the end of September, which will be published on November 10, it said.

As part of the settlement, Vodacom has withdrawn its case at the Supreme Court of Appeal.

There was no immediate comment from the former employee, Nkosana Makate, who had previously rejected a 47 million rand ($2.7 million) offer from Vodacom, holding out for a larger sum.

More than two decades ago Makate told Vodacom’s then-director of product development about his idea of developing the “Please Call Me” service.

The director agreed to put the product on trial for commercial viability, and Makate was told he would be paid a share of the revenue generated by his product, but that did not happen, according to court papers.

In July Vodacom won a partial court victory, when the country’s Constitutional Court found major flaws in a lower court’s ruling that Vodacom’s offer was inequitable.

Vodafone plans 1,200 job cuts

Earlier in July 2024, a former Vodafone unit in Spain that was recently acquired by Zegona Communications plans to cut up to 1,200 jobs, or just over a third of its total workforce.

The plan comes after London-listed Zegona closed the 5 billion euro ($5.41 billion) acquisition last month.