Markus Jooste, the former CEO of Steinhoff, walked away from the company as a financial scandal erupted three years ago. In June this year, Bloomberg reported Steinhoff International Holdings NV was paying for forensic auditors at PwC to help South African anti-corruption police investigate alleged financial wrongdoing that brought the retailer to the brink of collapse. "While PwC completed its own more than 3,000-page probe on behalf of Steinhoff last year, legal authorities have shown little sign of progress in identifying those responsible for transactions that caused Steinhoff to report accounting regularities in late 2017," it said at the time. In October Jooste was fined by the Financial Sector Conduct Authority more than R162 million for insider trading. He sent a text message to four people warning them to sell their stock in the Steinhoff.