The Please Call Me legal bill ran into hundreds of thousands. (Image created with GenAI)
In October 2024, as Please Call Me inventor Nkosana Makate prepared for what would become his final court battle, three senior and three junior advocates prepared his Heads of Argument – potentially costing between R90 000 and R145 000 a day.
The apex court ruled the matter had to return to the Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA), which hadn’t properly considered evidence before ordering Makate be paid between 5% and 7.5% of Please Call Me revenue.
Between 2014 and 2025, as Makate sought to secure a share of its proceeds from the Please Call Me invention, across four courts and six cases, Makate was represented by at least two senior counsel, who – the judgements record – were instructed by Stemela & Lubbe Inc.
Wilna Lubbe has been Makate’s attorney of record since mid-2011, when she was appointed as part of the inventor’s funding agreement signed with debarred and since deceased advocate Chris Schoeman on behalf of a company to be nominated. Schoeman, ITWeb has recently learnt, died earlier this decade, having suffered from heart problems for some time.
Black Rock Mining’s Errol Elsdon claims to have funded legal costs and is now claiming 40% of Makate’s late-2025 confidential settlement with Vodacom, which he says was worth R1 billion. The parties settled late last year after the Constitutional Court ruled the matter had to return to the SCA.
Peter Takaendesa, chief investment officer at Mergence Investment Managers, estimates the settlement at around R660 million, against Elsdon’s R1 billion. (In the first matter, decided in 2011 and detailed in The data that didn’t exist, Makate was represented by one advocate and a law firm.)
Senior counsel (SC or ‘silks’) cost between R3 000 and R4 400 an hour, junior counsel – those who haven’t taken silk – between R700 and R1 700, and senior attorneys around R2 800, according to 2020 costings on Schliemann Incorporated’s website.
Legal Aid, which provides low-cost services to those who can’t afford private practitioners, caps senior counsel at R2 589 an hour, with juniors at no more than two-thirds that amount.
Yet how much was contributed and by whom is the subject of the current battle between Elsdon and Makate, with five different amounts cited across hundreds of pages. A 2014 Johannesburg High Court decision records that Makate pursued Vodacom from a position of financial insecurity, eventually running out of money.
“He had to pay the lawyers out of his salary,” the decision states, and later: “The plaintiff was not financially well-off” and referring to “his precarious financial situation”. Judge Phillip Coppin found Makate did have a contract with Vodacom, but with the wrong person, and that any claim had in any event expired.
Senior counsel, junior counsel and attorneys cost thousands a day combined. (Graphic: Nicola Mawson)
By 2016, Makate successfully overturned the ruling at the Constitutional Court. Vodacom noted in its Heads of Argument that he was being funded by what it called ‘professional litigants’ – by then, Makate had nominated Black Rock as his funder.
Vodacom was ordered to start negotiations and pay the cost of two counsel and US-based expert witness in telecommunications, Ivan Zatkovich, who testified on the technical aspects of the invention.
In the midst of Makate’s battle, he and his legal team have consistently said that Black Rock never provided any funding towards his litigation.
This assertion is also contained in the inventor’s answering papers, when Elsdon unsuccessfully sought to freeze the payout, stating that “on 5 December 2014, Schoeman paid the paltry amount of R7 853 towards Makate’s legal costs… That is the last payment ever made towards Makate’s litigation costs.”
These papers add: “Makate has been dependent on the generosity of his legal representatives ever since.”
‘Please Call Me’ inventor Nkosana Makate. (Image supplied | Background by GenAI)
However, Makate has told ITWeb he had to carry the cost because Black Rock Mining never existed beyond paper and had no money – a claim repeated in a May filing opposing the British Virgin Islands-registered company’s bid for part of his winnings.
“He [Makate] has had to bear the costs of the entire PCM [Please Call Me] litigation since at least January 2015 and the concomitant risk of adverse legal costs orders.”
Elsdon has consistently claimed he provided R4.39 million for Makate’s case and is entitled to R400 million.
“From the outset, it was proposed that Black Rock would be the entity contracting with Makate,” says Elsdon. He explains to ITWeb that Black Rock was only nominated later because Schoeman wanted to secure the agreement of other early investors, who collectively raised an initial R500 000.
After this money ran out, Elsdon says “it became clear that the funding would primarily be sourced from funders in the United Kingdom through various offshore entities” to be housed in Black Rock.
Black Rock Mining’s Errol Elsdon (Source: Screengrab from CNBC Africa)
Through Black Rock, Elsdon claims to have raised £250 000 – some R3.75 million in 2013 – from London investor Global Distressed Alpha Fund III (GDAF), represented by its agent, Simba Capital VIII. Simba invested on the basis of Black Rock saying it would receive 50% of any settlement with Vodacom.
This amount was split into two payments, with £100 000 to be paid to London lawyers Hamilton Downing Quinn LLP, where it would be held on behalf of Stemela & Lubbe and dealt with only on Lubbe’s instructions. The remaining £150 000 was to be paid directly to Black Rock into an account nominated by Elsdon.
(Recently, Makate accused Elsdon of siphoning £75 000 – or R2.25 million based on the South African Reserve Bank’s historical exchange rate of R15 to UK Sterling – into related Cyprus-based entities. Elsdon has indicated he will sue over such defamation claims.)
These offshore entities – also linked to companies registered in Switzerland and Hong Kong – later sued both Elsdon and Schoeman to recover their investment after Makate lost the 2014 case.
In a 2018 UK case that was instigated by the three Global Distressed firms – which doesn’t seem to have ever made it to court – against Hamilton Downing Quinn, the Bermuda-based companies record that Makate never benefited from the £250 000 that Elsdon raised.
“It is noted that, on 24 May 2016, Lubbe informed [Bermuda-based investment funds lawyer] Chris Buchan that Stemela & Lubbe ‘did not receive payment from solicitors Hamilton, Downing Quinn’.” This case and the mystery surrounding the Bermuda companies is detailed in The Bermuda Triangle.
An arbitration ruling handed down in 2020 contains yet another number – R750 000 – which arbitrator Andrew Mabena records ran out, leading to Elsdon heading overseas to secure more cash.
Chris Buchan, an investment-funds specialist, makes a bit appearance in the Please Call Me saga. (Photograph: Appleby, placed on studio background)
This initial investment, Mabena records, was “obtained from friends and family members such as [Kevin] Jenkins, [Schoeman and] his ex-wife Wilma Schoeman, Elsdon and a [Tracey] Roscher in their personal capacities”. (The cast of characters is here.)
There’s more to the arbitration matter, which is broken down in The ghost in the deal.
Adding to the complexity, Makate appears to have secured alternative funding: Elsdon tells ITWeb “as far as we know, there were a number of people” funding him, while Lubbe says Makate “arranged” his own funding after the deal with the ‘Schoeman consortium’ was cancelled.
That disputed cancellation forms another leg of Makate’s defence against Elsdon’s 40% claim, detailed in Accusations fly.
14 July 2026
The Please Call Me millions: The cast of characters
ITWeb investigation: Makate says Black Rock was Elsdon’s ‘alter ego’
21 July 2026
The Please Call Me millions: Makate’s first case was ‘FUBR’
28 July 2026
The Please Call Me millions: The Bermuda Triangle
4 August 2026
The Please Call Me millions: The ghost in the deal
12 August 2026
The Please Call Me millions: Accusations fly
18 August 2026
The Please Call Me millions: Three strikes for Raining Men’s rescuer
25 August 2026
The Please Call Me millions: The data that didn’t exist
1 September 2026
Please Call Me millions: The Black Rock enigma
8 September 2026
The Please Call Me millions: The mystery funder
15 September 2026
The Please Call Me millions: But wait, there’s more
I was first alerted to some of the intertwined relationships in this series in January, resulting in a series that shape-shifted as I uncovered new connections, some of which warranted articles of their own.
I used artificial intelligence as a research tool: to untangle relationships, build organograms and relocate information buried in the almost 2 000 pages I read.
With ChatGPT helping me organise the court documents, researching one article sometimes uncovered information that belonged in one already published.
Thank you to my editors at ITWeb for having faith this topic warranted a series, and allowing me to follow where it led.
