By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
The Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA) has imposed a revised administrative penalty of R20 million on former Steinhoff International CEO Markus Jooste.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, the FSCA said this is for breaching section 78 (5) of the Financial Markets Act, Act 19 of 2012 (the Financial Markets Act).
“Notwithstanding the disclosure and encouragement, Mr Du Toit never acted on the contents of the warning SMS. The provision prohibits an insider from encouraging or discouraging another person to deal in securities which the inside information relates to.
“This penalty is payable on or before 06 January 2022. On 29 October 2020, the FSCA imposed an administrative penalty of R161 568 068 on Jooste for breaches of both section 78 (4) (a) and section 78 (5) of the Financial Markets Act,” said the FSCA.
The Financial Sector Tribunal on 13 December 2021 set the FSCA’s administrative penalty aside and referred the determination of an appropriate administrative penalty for the contravention of section 78 (5) of the Financial Markets Act to the FSCA for consideration.
The Tribunal concluded that Jooste did not contravene section 78 (4) (a) of the Financial Markets Act as the information he provided in the warning SMS sent to Jaap du Toit, Gerhardus Burger, Marthinus Swiegelaar and the late Ockert Oosthuizen to encourage them to sell their Steinhoff shares, was vague and imprecise.
Section 78 (4) (a) prohibits an insider from disclosing inside information to another person.
The tribunal advised the FSCA to consider alternative dates to calculate the losses avoided by the trades of Burger and Oosthuizen.
In arriving at the amount of the new administrative penalty and in line with the decision of the Tribunal the FSCA said it considered a range of factors.
“The amounts of the losses avoided by the recipients of the warning SMS as a result of the offending transactions, Jooste’s level of cooperation during the investigation, the seriousness of the breaches, the need to deter such conduct as well as Jooste’s submissions regarding the merits of the case against him including his submissions regarding an appropriate penalty, were considered,” it said.
It’s been a rough year for the former Steinhoff boss.
In October, the South African Reserve Bank (Sarb) secured a court order to attach Jooste’s assets for violating foreign exchange control rules. Jooste’s Lanzerac house and wine farm in Stellenbosch and another house in Hermanus in the Western Cape were seized, along with other assets.
Based on a statement by the Oldenburg regional court in November, it seems Jooste and three other people will go on trial in Germany next year on charges of accounting fraud.