Almost everything we know about the R200-billion Steinhoff collapse has been exposed by the media, and Steinhoff's continued refusal to provide access is hampering journalists' ability to tell the full story. Yes, he says. caroline james.
Everyone knows the story of Steinhoff and Markus Jooste. At least that's what we think.
What we do know has been revealed through careful and thorough investigative reporting, but most of Jooste and company's secrets remain locked away in the vault of secrecy imposed by Steinhoff himself. is.
One thing we do know is that in December 2017, Steinhoff's auditors refused to approve the annual financial statements, Mr. Jooste resigned as CEO, and the board said, “Further investigation required.'' It was announced that there had been significant accounting fraud.
This caused the stock price to plummet, eventually losing 98% of its value, costing shareholders R200 billion.
We know that this is South Africa's biggest corporate fraud, and that the biggest losers when companies fail are ordinary South Africans. Public employee pension funds and other investment groups holding private pensions were major shareholders.
We also know that Jooste is still undergoing criminal trial and that he is living comfortably in his mansion in Hermanus.
However, the full details of how the accounting fraud was carried out or who else was involved are not known.
And Steinhoff and its corporate descendants appear to be doing everything they can to cover up the story.
The most detailed investigation into what happened at Steinhoff was conducted in December 2017 by PwC, which partnered with Steinhoff. Fourteen months later, in March 2019, they submitted his thick 7,000-page report to Steinhoff.
However, Steinhoff only published an 11-page “summary.”
So we have to trust Steinhoff's claim that 11 pages are enough to say what PwC's report is about and what 7,000 pages should be. We can't do that.
Mr Amabhungane and his colleagues at Financial Mail have separately requested access to the PwC report under the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA).
Unless PwC can see what it has discovered, it cannot hope to understand everything Mr. Jooste did inside Steinhof, including who helped him and why no one stopped him. This means that the citizens who are victims of his actions do not know how and why their savings took such a huge hit as they did.
Steinhoff denied both PAIA requests, stating that the report was commissioned by their lawyer, Werksman, so that he could provide legal advice to Steinhoff, and was therefore legally privileged. He claimed that there was.
So we teamed up with Financial Mail to take Mr Steinhoff to court and ask the Western High Court to order him to release the report to us.
Steinhoff fought hard.
They reiterated their belief that the report was legally privileged and that they had never waived that privilege. They dispute our position that the public interest in the report outweighs any reason for keeping it hidden, and that removing the legitimately sensitive information and providing us with the rest is not an option. denied that it was possible.
Mr. Steinhoff argued that our right to freedom of expression was not affected by the refusal to report because we and other media had already reported on Steinhoff's collapse.
Steinhoff lost.
The court emphasized that “access to information is extremely important for accurate reporting and, ultimately, for conveying accurate information to the public.''
It said the report was not subject to legal privilege and ordered Steinhoff to provide access within 10 days.
Steinhoff immediately appealed the decision to suspend its obligation to provide access to the report.
Since then, Steinhoff has introduced new and innovative ways to explain why access cannot be granted.
Last February, Steinhoff introduced a new claim that Dutch and European Union data privacy laws apply because it is registered in the Netherlands.
This means that because PwC's reports contain personal information, if PwC provides them to us, they may be subject to penalties for breaching Dutch and European law. Steinhoff said.
This means that we will need to engage the services of European data law experts to tackle Steinhoff's new claims, and these laws will not prevent disclosure of the report in South Africa. We proved why we believe that.
Then, in November last year, Mr. Steinhoff announced that its descendant company (a holding company set up in conjunction with Mr. Steinhoff's liquidation) is registered in the UK and therefore subject to UK data privacy laws, as well as filing a report. It added that disclosure of information was prevented.
Once again, we hired European data law experts.
He reiterated that Steinhoff had misunderstood the law and that the foreign law in question should not be an obstacle to publishing the report domestically.
What is clear is that Steinhoff does not consider the need to give journalists access to information. There is no concept of an exception granted by data privacy laws for legitimate journalistic purposes.
They seem to be questioning the important role the media plays in investigating, reporting, and holding those responsible for corporate crimes to account.
Access to information and data privacy laws in South Africa, the European Union, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom clearly define the importance of maintaining access to almost all information for journalistic purposes.
As we have made clear in court documents, our request for access to the PwC report is based on the South African Constitution's protection of the right to freedom of expression. This includes the freedom to receive and transmit information and to exercise freedom of the press.
The Constitution makes clear that everyone has the right to access information held by private entities if access is necessary to exercise the protection of their rights. Our courts have confirmed that this right is triggered when journalists seek to access information.
PAIA is the law that gives effect to this constitutional right. We are permitted to deny requests for access based on certain grounds, but if access to the information is in the public interest and reveals evidence of a “serious violation of or non-compliance with the law”; These refusals are not legal.
To us, there has never been a clearer example of the public interest in accessing the documents of a private company.
With so many members of the public and pensioners suffering as a result of Mr Jooste's actions, and with no criminal prosecution brought against him in South Africa, how did Mr Steinhoff manage to keep investors away for so long? It is the media's responsibility to investigate whether they were able to deceive on a large scale.
The Supreme Court of Appeal is scheduled to hear Steinhoff's appeal in the first half of 2024. This is the next chapter in our ongoing struggle to uncover the full scope of the Steinhoff implosion.
Let's hope it's the last time.
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