{"id":73354,"date":"2014-11-13T14:49:23","date_gmt":"2014-11-13T12:49:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=73354"},"modified":"2014-11-13T14:49:23","modified_gmt":"2014-11-13T12:49:23","slug":"judge-rules-on-anti-cell-c-banner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/mobile\/73354\/judge-rules-on-anti-cell-c-banner\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge rules on anti-Cell C banner"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Gauteng High Court\u00a0Judge Sharise Weiner today (12 November 2014) ruled that the anti-Cell C billboard at the World Wear shopping centre\u00a0can stay up.<\/p>\n

Judge Weiner ruled that the application is not urgent and dismissed it on this basis, saying that Cell C should have brought the application on 23 October when Prokas first threatened to put it up.<\/p>\n

In her ruling Judge Weiner said that\u00a0Cell C misused the court\u2019s rules by bringing an urgent application.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt appears that the damage \u2013 if any \u2013 has already been done,\u201d said Judge Weiner<\/p>\n

The banner was put up by one George Prokas at the WorldWear Mall on Beyers Naude Drive on November 6.<\/p>\n

It bears a logo resembling the Cell C one and read: \u201cThe most useless service provider in SA – Cell C Sandton City.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Cell<\/a>

Cell C banner original<\/p><\/div>\n

It gave the name of the franchise manager and his phone number, claiming he had said that his \u201cunnamed executive head refuses to assist the customer\u201d.<\/p>\n

Christopher Whittcutt, for Cell C, argued on Wednesday (12 November) that the banner was a defamatory statement.<\/p>\n

Shem Symon, for Prokas, questioned how the cellphone provider could ask for an interim interdict for something that had already happened.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t really understand, after it has already happened and after it has gone viral,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The dispute arose from a phone Prokas had taken up for his son with Cell C in 2013. The phone\u2019s indicated number turned out to belong to and was being used by a different person, who ran up a bill of R5,000.<\/p>\n

When attempting to buy a car earlier in 2014, Prokas discovered he was listed as a bad debtor as a result of the unpaid R5,000.<\/p>\n

He sought to have the bill waived by Cell C but that did not happen. Prokas exchanged e-mails with Cell C, indicating he would put the banner up unless his complaints were dealt with.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week, the billboard was vandalised with positive messages replacing the negative ones.<\/p>\n

Black paint was used to remove the negative messages, and white spray-paint used to change the original messages.<\/p>\n

The main message was changed from \u201cThe most useless service provider in SA\u201d to \u201cThe most useful service provider in SA\u201d.<\/p>\n

The other message, which listed a Cell C employee\u2019s name, mobile number, and the message \u201chis unnamed executive head refuses to assist the customer\u201d was also removed. It now reads \u201cWe love Cell C\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"Cell<\/a>

Cell C vandalised billboard with new messages<\/p><\/div>\n

Reporting with Sapa.<\/em><\/p>\n

More on Cell C<\/h3>\n

Cell C \u201cmost useless\u201d banner ruling expected<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Anti-Cell C banner creator \u201cthe hell in\u201d<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Cell C on why it went to court over billboard<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Cell C takes legal action against \u201cmost useless\u201d banner<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The South Gauteng High Court has ruled on the urgent interdict brought against the anti-Cell C billboard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":54789,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[42,26],"class_list":["post-73354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mobile","tag-cell-c","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73354"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73354\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":73370,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73354\/revisions\/73370"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54789"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}