Former Steinhoff CFO sentenced to 5 years in prison following plea agreement
Ben la Grange’s agreement with the state involves providing information on his former colleagues at the company, which was liquidated in 2023.
Ben la Grange, the former chief financial officer (CFO) of Steinhoff, has been sentenced to five years in prison.
La Grange entered into a plea and sentence agreement in terms of section 105 A with the State for one count of fraud of over R367 million, emanating from the manipulation of financial statements and failure to report fraudulent activities. He was convicted as such.
FORMER STEINHOFF CFO BEN LA GRANGE SENTENCED
According to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA), from November to December 2016, then CEO, Markus Johannes Jooste, who is now deceased, and La Grange defrauded a Steinhoff subsidiary, Steinhoff At Work, the board of directors of Steinhoff Manufacturing and Steinhoff South Africa of an amount of over R367 million.
The prosecuting authority said on the instruction of Jooste, La Grange created documentation of transactions that supported the fraudulent transactions used to inflate and falsify the annual financial statements of the Steinhoff Group for the financial year 2016.
“After investigations by the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) La Grange was fined R2 million for the role he played in the Steinhoff At Work transactions and barred from holding office in a public company for 10 years.”
NPA WELCOMES SENTENCING
The NPA and the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigation (the Hawks) have welcomed the sentence.
Patting themselves on the back, the NPA and the Hawks said securing a second conviction and sentence in the Steinhoff matter in just a week is a reflection that even though the wheels of justice turn slowly, impunity no longer prevails, and those accused of complex commercial crime now know that it is a matter of when the dreaded knock on their door comes.
“This case has been one of the most complex commercial crime cases that the DPCI and the NPA have had to deal with. At a point when a significant breakthrough was made to enrol the case earlier this year, the main accused, ex-CEO of Steinhoff Markus Jooste took his life on the eve of his arrest, thus escaping the hands of justice when it mattered the most.”