After the Bell: Markus Jooste was hoist with his own petard

Former Steinhoff CEO Markus Jooste’s death by suicide was shocking and leaves one with conflicting emotions. We are fragile little leaves, we humans. Many people, I suspect, think suicide is a cowardly way of avoiding taking responsibility for all the harm you caused. There is certainly something to that. But there is also a kind of feeble bravery in it; it’s the last resort in an attempt to spare yourself (and perhaps those you love) the indignity of what is to come. It leaves everyone a bit confused and a lot traumatised.

It’s a horrible end, but — there is no escaping this — Jooste’s was perhaps somewhat deserved. Sometimes suicide is thought of in general terms but of course, it’s a complex issue. Suicide stemming from depression is very different from suicide as a result of being discovered to have been a crook and bringing shame on yourself, your family, your colleagues and your businesses. For this, Jooste is the prime culprit.

But I wonder how much those around him are culpable too; not only his associates and his co-conspirators, but all the other struts and beams in the construction of our society that are supposed to guard against financial fraud and such moral decrepitude. Jooste failed us, that much is obvious, but to what extent did we fail him? Or is that just all too convoluted and labyrinthine? 

You could ask the question a different way: why do people commit financial crimes? The answer to that is well researched. People commit financial crimes because they have the motivation, the opportunity and the ability to rationalise what they do.  

Financial crime has an incremental aspect. In Jooste’s case, some financial analysts were concerned about the probity of Steinhoff’s accounts from early on. The concerns flared up quickly but also died down quickly. It’s an open question why those concerns were never taken seriously, and it’s at this point that you might argue that there is an element of shared blame in the arc of Jooste’s demise. Having escaped this hiccup, Jooste might have thought he could take it a step further. 

And I hate to say this, but if that’s true, financial journalism is also in the spotlight here.

Financial crimes take place if potential criminals believe that the rewards are achievable and large, the chances of detection are low and the punishment is light.