The Financial Sector Conduct Authority had fined Markus Jooste, the late former CEO of Steinhoff, R475m and intended to lay criminal charges against him for contravening sections 81A and B of the Financial Markets Act.

In a media briefing on Wednesday, (the day before Markus Jooste is believed to have committed suicide), Alex Pascoe, the head of market abuse at the Financial Sector Conduct Authority (FSCA), said a criminal case involving the contravention of sections 81A and B of the Financial Markets Act (FMA) would be added to a much bigger National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) fraud investigation now under way.

"We are obviously going to inform the JSE of our findings, as well as the South African Reserve Bank and other regulators such as Irba [Independent Regulatory Board for Auditors] and Saica [South African Institute of Chartered Accountants]," he said.

When questioned about how likely it was that the FSCA would ever see the administrative penalty paid, Pascoe said the fine would become a debt to the FSCA if unpaid, and the FSCA was entitled to take steps such as civil execution to recover the fine.

Regarding Steinhoff's former European finance chief, Dirk Schreiber, Pascoe said the leniency agreement Schreiber received had very strict terms and conditions to which he had to adhere. Given that Jooste had previously appealed and succeeded in reducing an FSCA insider trading fine from R161.6-million to R20-million, the FSCA was...