Jooste rejects Steinhoff’s ‘vague and embarrassing’ bid to recoup R850m

In June, Steinhoff announced it would attempt to get former CEO Markus Jooste to pay over R850 million because of his role in the accounting crisis that almost led to the business’s collapse.

The company, which owns Pep stores across Africa, will look to claw back base salaries, bonuses and other incentives paid to Jooste since 2009 because of his role in the accounting crisis that triggered the retailer’s near-collapse.

Now Jooste has rejected Steinhoff’s claim as “vague and embarrassing”, Bloomberg reports.

He has fought back by way of papers filed at the High Court in Cape Town, giving Steinhoff two weeks to “remove the identified causes of complaint”.

His lawyers argue that the company failed to provide enough detail of his employment contract in the lawsuit, including whether certain elements were made orally or in writing.

READ MORE: Steinhoff wants ex-CEO Markus Jooste to pay back R850m

Steinhoff’s attempts to recoup what they’ve paid Jooste are predicated on the claim that these payments were conditional on “the sound and successful financial performance” of the company and were only made to the former CEO as the remuneration committee did not know all the facts at the time.

Jooste, however, argues that these were not “express terms” of his employment contract. He is also arguing that Steinhoff has failed to show how any fictitious deals or accounting irregularities resulted in a loss to the company, rather than its shareholders.

As part of the more than R850 million claim against Jooste, Steinhoff is seeking about 2.1 million euros ($2.4 million) in bonuses that the ex-CEO received in 2017 without prior approvals. Those payments were first disclosed in Steinhoff’s annual report for that year, which was belatedly released in May.

The company’s shares have collapsed by 97% since the crisis erupted in late 2017, while Steinhoff remains locked in talks with creditors about the restructuring of $12 billion of debt. The company is being investigated by regulators and authorities around the world, including South Africa’s anti-graft police unit known as the Hawks.

(Compiled by Daniel Friedman. Background reporting, Moneyweb)

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