EDITORIAL: SA needs dutch courage

It’s a shot across the bow that will have auditing firm Deloitte deeply worried. Last week, former Deloitte auditor Patrick Seinstra was found guilty in a disciplinary hearing in Amsterdam of bungling the audit of Steinhoff.

The Netherlands Authority for the Financial Markets said Seinstra acted "contrary to the fundamental principle of professional competence and due care", failed to secure "sufficient and appropriate audit evidence" and was "insufficiently professionally critical", according to the finding first reported by News24.

The sanction — a suspension of Seinstra’s licence for three months — is almost beside the point; he’d left the industry long before this hearing.

And there are several mitigating circumstances in Deloitte’s favour. For example, Seinstra was lied to by former Steinhoff CEO Markus Jooste and, allegedly, by the auditors of Steinhoff’s European business, Commerzial Treuhand. Also, it was Deloitte’s refusal to sign Steinhoff’s 2017 financials that led to the deception being unmasked.

Still, for a fraud that went on for more than a decade, involving R106bn in fictitious profits, it always seemed likely that a scalp would be claimed of the auditors.

But what is more glaring is that while this is a landmark SA fraud, our authorities are nowhere. Why should there only be consequences in the Netherlands?