Former Steinhoff director Hein Odendaal was fined R2 million for his part in the fraud. Hein Odendaal, a former Steinhoff executive, was sentenced to a fine of R2 million or four years imprisonment after pleading guilty to fraud. This follows his appearance in the Pretoria Specialised Commercial Crimes Court in a matter linked to the long-running investigation into accounting irregularities at the now-defunct retail group.
Odendaal was also sentenced to an additional two years imprisonment, which is wholly suspended for a period of five years on conditions that he is not convicted of contravention of Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act and subject himself to one year of correctional supervision. In a statement, the National Prosecuting Authority said Odendaal’s sentence is the result “of his participation in the Steinhoff saga where in his position at the company, he failed to report the fraud committed through fictitious income created which led to false and misleading Audited Financial Statements to the police”. Odendaal was a director of the company between 2003 and 2018 and served on supervisory boards of several international entities within the group.
According to MarketScreener, Odendaal was previously managing director of Steinhoff Africa Group Services. Earlier in his career he served as a finance manager at the South African Reserve Bank, a manager at Arthur Young & Company and later a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers. Odendaal, Iwan Peter Schelbert and Stephanus Grobler were collectively facing charges including nine counts of fraud worth millions of rands, manipulation of financial statements, failure to report fraudulent activities and racketeering.
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Odendaal’s court appearance comesnearly a decade after the collapse of Steinhoff, once one of the largest companies listed on the JSE. Its failure was triggered by the 2017 disclosure of accounting irregularities by then auditors Deloitte, which sent the company’s share price plunging and led to the resignation of chief executive Markus Jooste. Moonstone Information Refinery reported in mid-January that one of Odendaal’s co-accused, Schelbert, had been sentenced to five years’ direct imprisonment after he was convicted of fraud involving more than R376 million.
Schelbert was a director and board member of Steinhoff at Work, which manufactured and distributed furniture, between June 2004 and March 2018. The matter against Grobler, Steinhoff’s former legal head, is ongoing, although he was recently fined R358.75 million by theFinancial Sector Conduct Authority(FSCA).
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