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Steinhoff has applied to have its former CEO Markus Jooste joined as a third party to a court case brought against Steinhoff by the former owners of Tekkie Town.
According to court papers seen by Fin24, the application was launched in the Cape High Court on Friday.
Jooste has ten days to indicate whether he wants to oppose the matter and then a further 20 days to submit his defense.
The former Tekkie Town owners initiated their case against Steinhoff in May last year, and in May 2019 obtained an urgent interdict in the Cape High Court preventing Steinhoff from dealing with its controlling stake in Pepkor in any way that would prevent the return of the Tekkie Town shares and business to the claimants.
'Steinhoff will rely on this motion'
Bernard Mostert, one of the former owners of Tekkie Town, told Fin24 that "when we are successful against Steinhoff, Steinhoff will rely on this motion to claim damages from Jooste".
The former owners of Tekkie Town want to have their stake in Tekkie Town returned or alternatively be paid R1.8bn in compensation.
In 2016, the former owners of Tekkie Town exchanged their controlling stake in the business for shares in Steinhoff. These shares became basically worthless after Steinhoff's share price imploded on the back of allegations of accounting irregularities, subsequently shown by the company to have been fraudulent.
According to court documents, Steinhoff indicated that it waited for the results of the forensic investigation by PwC before it took the step to apply to join Jooste as a third party to the "Tekkie Town" case.
The report indicated, among other things, that Jooste acted in a way that was detrimental to the interests of Steinhoff.
At its most recent results, Steinhoff-controlled Pepkor indicated that Tekkie Town is struggling as a business and attributed this to tough economic conditions.
