After all these years of waiting, the Steinhoff case has finally come to court without attracting all that much attention. That may be because the chief villain, Markus Jooste, avoided prosecution by allegedly committing suicide earlier this year on the eve of his arrest.
Yet it matters a great deal that the accomplices he left behind have been brought to justice. Hopefully they will all be held to account for a gargantuan financial fraud that wiped more than R100bn off the value of the Steinhoff shares held by pension funds and retail investors and damaged the reputation of SA and its financial markets.
And if holding them to account is important for the integrity and reputation of SA’s markets, it is important too in a political environment in which justice needs to be seen to be done for crimes committed in the private sector as well as those, such as the state capture related crimes, perpetrated in the public sector.
Jooste’s former associate Gerhard Burger has now pleaded guilty to insider trading and turned state’s witness. He is expected to testify in the trial of Steinhoff’s former head of treasury, Stéhan Grobler.
These are incredibly complex crimes to prosecute and the National Prosecuting Authority was never going to make progress without drawing on the skills and experience of private sector senior counsel and other experts.
That it has brought these cases to court is testimony to the fact that it has drawn on these resources. It demonstrates the importance of partnering with the private sector, carefully, to support SA’s law enforcement agencies and ensure they bring those accused of financial crimes to justice.
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