Vodacom Group revealed its annual report on Friday – and nowhere in it, nor within the accompanying annual monetary statements, is there any disclosure of what it paid to settle the “please name me” dispute, the matter that dominated the corporate’s authorized agenda for the higher a part of 20 years.
The built-in report is just not shy about claiming the decision as a win. “Pleasingly, we settled the ‘please name me’ matter out of court docket and each events are glad that finality has been reached,” chairman Saki Macozoma wrote in his assertion to shareholders.
The board lists the settlement amongst its key achievements for the 12 months below the heading “Decision of a longstanding authorized matter”.
No settlement determine is disclosed. Certainly, the identify Nkosana Makate – the previous Vodacom trainee accountant on the centre of the saga – seems nowhere within the group’s total annual reporting suite.
Vodacom settled with Makate out of court docket on 4 November 2025, days earlier than the supreme court docket of enchantment was because of rehear the matter. The settlement was accounted for within the group’s interim outcomes for the six months ended 30 September 2025, however the quantity was not disclosed. The determine is believed to be north of R500-million, although neither social gathering has confirmed this.
The year-end disclosures have been the final practical alternative for the quantity to floor – and it hasn’t.
No seen footprint
The settlement has left no seen footprint within the 117-page annual monetary statements, the place one may need anticipated to seek out it. The doc makes no point out of the matter in any respect. The authorized issues part of the contingent liabilities be aware, the place the dispute was disclosed in earlier years’ monetary statements, has been decreased to a single paragraph stating that the group is “at the moment concerned in varied authorized disputes throughout its completely different jurisdictions” and that “ample provision has been made in respect of all these circumstances”.
Vodacom’s provisions be aware reveals authorized and regulatory provisions of R696-million at year-end, up from R610-million a 12 months earlier, with simply R86-million in new provisions created through the 12 months – and nothing utilised. A fee of the dimensions reportedly made to Makate doesn’t seem to have flowed via this be aware in any respect.
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The working revenue be aware, which itemises expenses as small as R3-million in non-audit charges paid to the group’s auditors, is equally silent. The settlement seems to have been absorbed straight into working bills with out separate disclosure.
The opacity is per how Vodacom has dealt with the settlement since November. The group acknowledged in its interim outcomes that the fee had knocked Vodacom South Africa’s monetary efficiency, however declined to quantify it.
The settlement ended considered one of South Africa’s longest-running and most intently watched company authorized battles. Makate proposed the concept for a free callback messaging service to the corporate’s product improvement workforce in 2000. It launched as “please name me” in 2001 and have become one of the crucial broadly used providers on Vodacom’s community.
The constitutional court docket dominated in 2016 that Makate was entitled to affordable compensation, leaving it to group CEO Shameel Joosub to find out the quantity after negotiations between the events deadlocked. Joosub’s willpower of R47-million was rejected by Makate, sending the matter again via the courts. In February 2024, the supreme court docket of enchantment dealt Vodacom a serious blow, discovering Makate was entitled to between 5% and seven.5% of the income generated by the service over 18 years – a system Vodacom stated would entitle him to between R29-billion and R63-billion, with “devastating penalties” for the corporate.
The constitutional court docket later set that judgment apart and ordered the matter again to a in another way constituted enchantment court docket panel. The settlement was concluded earlier than that listening to may happen.
For Makate, the struggle has not fully ended: litigation funder Black Rock Mining is claiming 40% of his payout, a dispute now headed for arbitration after the excessive court docket in December dismissed Black Rock’s pressing bid to freeze the funds.
No matter Vodacom paid, the corporate clearly decided that the quantity stays a secret – and its auditors at EY have evidently agreed that separate disclosure was not required. – © 2026 NewsCentral Media
