Markus Jooste may be counting his days as a free man, but he and other Steinhoff executives will not be worried about South Africa’s flailing hand of justice.
Instead, as Manager Magazin reports, the scandalous multinational corporation could be in hot waters with the German judiciary.
Germany lines up fraud charges for Steinhoff bigwigs
In the report, published this week, it’s confirmed that Germany’s public prosecutors — the equivalent of South Africa’s NPA — have concluded an investigation into the retailer’s balance sheet fraud case that was filed in 2015.
If the Germans have it their way, then Steinhoff bigwigs could face at least three years in jail for contravening Section 331 of the German Commercial Code.
At this time, the prosecutors’ deposition has not included any names, only that there are three executives in the firing line. From what we know, Jooste, the company’s Group CEO, and ex-chief for the Europe market Dirk Schreiber are just some of the execs in the pickings.
Hawks tossed R30m bone in Jooste probe
In South Africa, a similar investigation is taking place against Steinhoff. Except, in this instance, the Hawks-led probe is funded by the persons/company of interest in the fraud case.
Whether this is a direct conflict of interest is a topic of high contention in political circles. However, NPA spokesperson Sipho Ngwema, speaking in an interview with Radio 702, tried to provide clarity on this shoddy development.
According to Ngwema, the high complexity of this multinational white collar crime that was committed over a span of at least eight years, is beyond the capabilities of the Hawks.
Ngwema indicated, though, that a financial boost brought on by Steinhoff has helped in sourcing assistance from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) as chief investigators in a financial crime probe they too may be implicated in as former auditors of the retailer.
“That has given us a huge advantage in terms of moving the case forward,” he said.
Ngwema added that receiving R30 million from Steinhoff is not a conflict of interest, but rather a commitment from a complainant to assist in bringing finality to the investigation.
“You need money, you need capacity to fight crime. Remember we lost a lot of good people over the past 10 years or so. We need to bring those people back. We need to compete with the private sector in terms of bringing in the skills and helping us build capacity,” Ngwema explained.
In the midst of the outrage and confusion over this unprecedented development, Justice Minister Ronald Lamola has pleaded for patience, stating that cases as complex as these require time and extensive resources to build a solid, prosecutable case.
“With regards to the years, these kind of investigations take time, we must not come here and lie that these kind of investigations can be done within a day,” said Lamola in a Parliamentary Q&A.
Steinhoff, at this time, is not taking calls from the media. The embattled retailer says it awaits the outcome of the German investigation before it can make any statements.