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Former Steinhoff CEO Markus Jooste.
Photo Illustration by News24. Photo by Jaco Marais
Former Steinhoff CEO Markus Jooste, who faces a warrant of arrest in Germany for failing to appear for his fraud trial, did not attend proceedings in Pretoria on Tuesday for his challenge against a reduced R20 million fine for insider trading.
Shortly before proceedings began, Stephan Haynes, a member of Jooste’s legal team from law firm from DKVG, confirmed to News24 that Jooste would not be in attendance. His absence was confirmed once proceedings kicked off at 09:00.
Jooste, who resigned from Steinhoff in late 2017 when the first signs of a major accounting scandal came to light, was fined R162 million in October 2020 by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority for insider trading.
He was found guilty of sending an SMS to four friends, warning them to get rid of their Steinhoff stock immediately. In December, the Financial Sector Conduct Tribunal reduced the fine by 90% to R20 million, ruling that Jooste did not disclose “precise” inside information to his friends. It still upheld the ruling that Jooste had encouraged his friends to sell their shares, meaning he had engaged in insider trading.
In July, the Higher Regional Court of Oldenburg in Germany rejected Jooste’s challenge against his arrest warrant. News24 previously reported that authorities were working on a request to extradite Jooste from South Africa.
In August the same court handed Steinhoff’s former European finance chief, Dirk Schreiber, a three-and-a-half year jail sentence, making him the first person to be imprisoned over the accounting scandal that led to the near-collapse of the retailer.
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