An interim order was released by the South African Competition Tribunal on Friday that WhatsApp and Facebook may not delete GovChat from the WhatsApp site. The court also ordered that WhatsApp and Facebook should not do anything to disrupt the relationship between GovChat and its users, which would, in essence, delete GovChat from the WhatsApp platform.
In a statement on Friday, the tribunal claimed that these orders were given to control the arrangements between GovChat, WhatsApp and Facebook from now until it issued its decision against the social media sites in GovChat’s interim relief application.
The tribunal imposed the order because, during this transitional period, the parties were unable to agree on agreements between themselves.
“Facebook wants to kick GovChat off WhatsApp to offer similar services to the government”
Trouble started when Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, blocked GovChat from accessing the WhatsApp platform over GovChat’s alleged violation of the contractual terms of use.
GovChat, a civic engagement platform, offers various government-sanctioned communications services, including information relating to COVID-19 and connecting with government representatives.
“As the official citizen engagement platform for the South African Government, GovChat acts as a centralised hub bringing all government and civic services together with cutting-edge conversational AI, intuitive design, and ease of access,” the GovChat website states.
GovChat said, to the competition tribunal, that Facebook was up to a game by blocking it. It accused the global giant of fronting Praekelt Consulting Services, which builds competing services to GovChat. It further said the plan was to off-board GovChat from the WhatsApp Business API so that Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, would deal directly with the government to the exclusion of GovChat.
However, while Facebook argued before the tribunal that the case pertains to its rights to enforce the contractual terms that govern the use of its paid business messaging platform, the WhatsApp business application programming interface, which connects third parties to the platform, GovChat argued that it had made numerous failed attempts to reach a commercial solution for all stakeholders, with Facebook, to prevent the termination of GovChat’s access to the WhatsApp platform,
Read also: Why More South African Startups Have Raised Funds This Year
Last year, GovChat, based in Pretoria, announced it had secured an investment facility from JSE-listed firm Capital Appreciation, which would allow the startup to tap up to R20-million in funding from the listed company. GovChat was founded in 2016 and launched in 2018 by CEO Eldrid Jordaan. As at 2019, the startup had at least 500,000 South Africans users of its platform
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer