Funder Errol Elsdon sues Makate, vows to reveal funding behind ‘Please Call Me’ case

Errol Elsdon, who says he helped fund Nkosana Makate’s landmark “Please Call Me” litigation against Vodacom, has instructed attorneys to begin defamation proceedings against Makate and will seek to expose the financial structure behind the case in open court.

Defamation claim and public record

Elsdon confirmed on Wednesday that he has launched the legal action after statements published on 7 June 2026 that he says falsely portrayed him as a fraudster.

“I was willing to be called many things when I agreed to fund this case,” Elsdon said in a press statement. “A criminal was never one of them. I will not be branded a criminal for honouring a contract, and I will answer that accusation where it belongs: in court.”

Dispute over who funded the claim

The long-running “Please Call Me” story has often been told as an underdog battle by Makate, a former Vodacom employee who claimed he invented the service and later reached a settlement reported at one billion rand. Elsdon’s statement sharply contests that narrative.

He says that when Makate first approached him and the late Christiaan Schoeman in 2011, the claim was “unfunded, untested, and stalled” and that the legal cause of action was “substantially reworked” before any funding was committed.

“This was never simply David against Goliath,” the statement reads. “This ‘David’ was backed, from the outset, by a team of funders through Black Rock.”

Funding structure and contractual dispute

Elsdon says capital was raised from a group of private backers with arms-length institutional funding partners, and that a professional legal team was retained, partly on contingency. He added that the money was advanced entirely at risk.

The current High Court dispute focuses on whether Black Rock, as the nominated funding vehicle under a written funding agreement concluded in 2011, is entitled to its contractual share of the Vodacom settlement proceeds. Elsdon says an arbitrator confirmed Black Rock was the only entity validly nominated and that the nomination was never cancelled.

“What is in issue is not whether that agreement was made,” the statement reads, “but Makate’s attempt, years later, to escape its terms.”

Extortion allegation rejected

Makate has reportedly characterised enforcement of the agreement as extortion. Elsdon rejected that characterisation.

“Extortion is a demand for something you have no right to,” Elsdon said. “A funding agreement is the opposite: a contract, freely signed, under which those who take the risk share in the result. Asking to be held to the very terms that brought a claim to court is not a threat. It is how litigation finance works the world over.”

Corporate technicalities and public airing

Some scrutiny has focused on Black Rock’s registration in the British Virgin Islands and a period during which the company was deregistered, reportedly over an unpaid annual fee. Elsdon described that as an administrative lapse, noting the company was subsequently restored and that under BVI law restoration is treated as though the deregistration never occurred. He said the original nomination of Black Rock predated the lapse.

Elsdon framed the defamation action as both a defence of his reputation and a defence of litigation funding as a model. He argued that without such funding, meritorious claims by ordinary South Africans would not reach the courts.

“Without it, this claim, like many meritorious claims before it, would never have seen the light of day,” he said.

What Elsdon says he will prove

With the matter due to be heard in public, Elsdon said the full record of the funding and who did what will be disclosed.

“For years, this story has been told in a single voice,” he said. “Now the evidence and documents will speak for themselves.”

He added:

“I helped a man who had nothing turn a stalled and unfunded claim into a landmark result. I ask only that Black Rock be held to the agreement that made it possible.”