Collapsed Steinhoff faces revived 2019 price-fixing case as probe heads to Competition Tribunal

AN EXTENSIVE and lengthy legal battle, which went through several courts, has just seen the Pretoria High Court rule against the now-defunct Steinhoff over allegations of price fixing, paving the way for the matter to ostensibly proceed.

- NICOLA MAWSON

The judgement reverses a previous one after the Competition Commission was granted leave to appeal by the Supreme Court of Appeal. It means that an alleged price-fixing matter involving PG Bison - indirectly owned by Steinhoff - and a firm with which it should have been in competition, Sonae, proceeding to the Competition Tribunal.

However, the issue is only moving ahead six years after the Commission decided to refer the complaint to the Tribunal and some 18 months after Steinhoff, which imploded in 2017 after Deloitte flagged accounting irregularities, was delisted from both the Frankfurt and Johannesburg bourses and liquidated.