The Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) says its civil investigation into Steinhoff is ongoing, despite former CEO Markus Jooste's death on Thursday afternoon.
It says the R475m fine issued on Wednesday before his death will remain in place.
Jooste took his life by suicide the day before he was expected to fly to Pretoria and hand himself over to police so that he could appear in court to face criminal charges.
The National Prosecuting Authority was ready to charge and prosecute him using top advocates, who usually work privately. It had enlisted the services of Wim Trengove SC, Michelle Le Roux SC and advocate Michael Mbikiwa.
The private prosecutors were to be sworn in to work in the commercial crimes court next week.
It is not yet decided what will happen to the rest of the case now that the main defendant cannot be prosecuted.
Other officials working at Steinhoff were also to be prosecuted.
Jooste was the CEO of multinational furniture retailer Steinhoff when it created fictitious offshore shell companies to inflate profits and hide losses.
Despite involvement in SA’s biggest fraud, in which SA and European shareholders and pension funds lost at least R200bn, he had been living a free man in Hermanus in the Western Cape since December 2017.
The criminal charges which were to be instituted have not been publicly released, but would have likely been related to fraud and financial misstatements and possibly breaches of exchange control regulations.
In a civil case, the FCSA on Wednesday fined Jooste R475m for false, misleading and deceptive information contained in Steinhoff's financial reports from 2014 to 2017.
They said he had breached the Financial Markets Act.
But the FSCA says as the fine was issued on Wednesday, before his death in his personal capacity, it remains in place.
“The FSCA is legally entitled to recover the penalty from the estate of the late Jooste. Whether the authority will claim against the estate will be decided at the appropriate time, taking into account all the relevant circumstances.”
It concluded that while he appeared before it, he “intentionally lied” to the authority during its investigation. It said that in denying being behind any of the reported financial irregularities and by not answering questions adequately Jooste served to “deceive and waste the time” of the FSCA.
Its investigation was to be used in the NPA's case against him.
News24 reported that former Steinhoff company secretary and legal head Stéhan Grobler appeared in court in Pretoria on Friday for a bail application.
Many of Jooste's assets, including cars in his wife's name, jewellery and paintings were frozen by the SA Reserve Bank in 2022 meaning he could not sell his upmarket Hermanus house or the Stellenbosch Lanzerac wine estate.
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