Alec Hogg (00:01) Well, yesterday David Shapiro said what everybody else had been thinking. When six men keep a secret, one of them eventually cracks. And the one who cracked in the campus six, as we call them, was Jason Goodall, former chief executive of Dimension Data and NTT. He signed a statement in which he admitted that he and his counterparts were on both sides of a R1.4 billion transaction for the sale of the campus. There was BEE involved in all of this as well.

It went to court. The Japanese, NTT, won round one. The campus six have appealed against it, so at the moment it's in the appeal court, which makes all of this really interesting, because Jason Goodall, apart from signing a confession, also agreed to pay NTT R208 million.

You don't agree to pay that kind of money unless there's a pretty good reason for it. In his confession, he names Jeremy Ord, Stephen Nathan, Saki Misaikos and Grant Bodley as his co-adventurers. The other four denied it. They came out with a statement last night saying that he was under pressure and so he just made a deal for himself, and they're all waiting for the Supreme Court of Appeal to give its final verdict.

But what does a confession like this look like in law? Does it mean that it's a crime? Can the appeal judges (remember, they reserved judgment in May, so they're still looking at it) even look at the confession? Can they take it into account? Does anyone go to jail, now or later?

Paul Hoffman SC of Accountability Now has spent years asking why white-collar criminals in South Africa seldom see the inside of a courtroom, let alone a jailhouse. Paul, good to have you. This is right up your street. I sent you all the information that we had, and I can just imagine from your side that this is maybe the landmark story that could push Accountability Now's campaigns, if you like, into another gear.

Alec Hogg (02:29) But let's start at the beginning. Is it a crime? If what Goodall signed is accurate, does it mean that these guys have now committed a criminal offence?

Paul Hoffman (02:41) Yes, I think that the answer has to be that a fraud has been perpetrated. That was indeed the finding in the civil proceedings in which Judge Denise Fisher gave judgment in 2024. You remember that this deal was really Dimension Data, on the face of it, getting a BEE partner into its campus in Bryanston. That was in order to polish its marble [unclear] with the BEE scores that are required if you try to do business in South Africa.

The original legal proceedings were started only in 2022, when NTT, the Japanese partner in Dimension Data, blew the whistle loudly and said, look, you six gentlemen have pulled a fast one on us and we want the status quo ante to be restored, which would involve giving back the campus to NTT.

Initially, there were six gentlemen in Dimension Data who were alleged to be involved in this conspiracy to pull the wool over the eyes of NTT, the Japanese partner, by pretending to be doing a BEE deal to the advantage of everybody, because you would then get BEE points and you'd be able to do more business in South Africa because of your enhanced BEE status. Now, as you said in your intro, there are four left standing. Goodall has jumped ship.

Paul Hoffman (04:34) Doc Watson appears to have been a bit-part player. I suppose his name is Doc Watson because somebody read Sherlock Holmes along the way. But Doc Watson is just not featuring. He's not part of the pushback which we saw yesterday from Jeremy Ord and the gentlemen you have mentioned.

Alec Hogg (04:57) Paul, interesting case. Doc Watson, who David thought was in Australia, is not. He's in South Africa, but he's got his own legal counsel. So he had already divided himself from the other five, now four, as you correctly say. So there's a loose thread there as well, which at some point might unravel too. Just as a point of note.

Paul Hoffman (05:21) Yes, it seems that he is on the point of joining team Goodall, or perhaps trying to get himself out of the mire which has eventuated in this deal. But to get back to your question (I was simply trying to set the stage properly): what we have is incomplete litigation.

The matter was heard on paper in the Gauteng court, and Denise Fisher, the judge in the matter, found for the Japanese and had some really strong words to say about the way that Jeremy Ord and the other Dimension Data directors or players behaved. I think Doc Watson was just a player rather than a director. All of them were ordered to pay back the money, unscramble the deal and restore the status quo ante, as lawyers like to say.

That is on appeal. It has been argued, and the Supreme Court of Appeal, which is the venue to which the appeal was directed, has reserved judgment. It will not take into account any of the recent developments: the confession by the NTT CEO in Britain, who has now jumped ship and left his South African counterparts in order to side with the NTT version of things, and basically confessed that he was part of a massive fraud in the deal that they pretended to do.

Alec Hogg (07:13) Paul, I understand in law that's accurate, but imagine if those appeal court judges were to find in favour of Jeremy Ord and Co. What public outcry there might be.

Paul Hoffman (07:30) No, I don't know that that's necessarily the case. You see, what happened was that Judge Fisher was prepared to give final relief on paper, rather than in the light of evidence given and tested in cross-examination, because she was satisfied that on their own version, the dreaded six had no defence in law. And that proposition is what is being tested in the Supreme Court of Appeal.

Now, the Supreme Court of Appeal decides the matter on the basis of the information that was before Judge Fisher in 2024 when she was hearing the opposed application in Gauteng. That changes only if one or other of the parties were to jump out of the woodwork now and say, excuse us, judges, we want to make an application for leave to lead evidence in the appeal, because we now have this red-hot statement. It suggests that in fact the applicants were right all along, that the Japanese were correct to complain, as they did in 2022, about the skulduggery in the deal, and we want you to take that into account when you are determining the matter.

Obviously the judges in the Supreme Court of Appeal read newspapers and perhaps even watch business news, we don't know. But the position in which they find themselves is a little bit artificial, because the story has moved on. One of the respondents in the matter, one of the Dimension Data six, seems to have just disappeared into the woodwork. That's Doc Watson. And the other, who seems to have a closer relationship with NTT than any of the remaining four, has jumped ship completely. He has confessed to being involved in the shenanigans that went on when the deal was done.

Paul Hoffman (09:40) And so unless there is an application to introduce the Goodall evidence in the Supreme Court of Appeal, the matter will be decided on the basis of the papers that were before Judge Fisher. And the question is: was it correct to make the finding which she made?

Now, I am sure that the Dimension Data six have been advised that they are up against it, and that really what they are doing is both a filibuster and a hugely technical defence, which is to the effect of: please don't find that we are crooks without evidence to that effect, rather than on a conspectus of the affidavits that have been filed.

Alec Hogg (10:05) Mm.

Paul Hoffman (10:32) I think they're going to have difficulty with that, because the affidavits seem to suggest that, out of their own mouths and out of what they did, it's pretty clear that there was a dirty deal being done, pretending to be a BEE deal, which wasn't. And they've been ordered to pay back the money, restore the assets and all the rest of it. So I think that if that isn't settled, the prospects of success of the Dimension Data six, or now five, are not that rosy.

Alec Hogg (11:07) But let's get back to the crime. I'm going to give you three points that I'd love you just quickly to tell us whether or not it falls under. Section 34 of the Prevention and Combating of Corrupt Activities Act, something you know incredibly well, obliges people in authority to report corruption or fraud. So by Goodall's own statement, surely he's exposed, because he's now saying, yes...

Paul Hoffman (11:30) Yes, he's confessed. What he's done is a confession. It's not only a confession to a breach of the PRECCA legislation that you just neatly summarised for us, but it's also a confession to a fraud, a massive fraud. And there's clearly a conflict of interest; section 75 of the Companies Act comes into it.

There is no doubt that if the version put up by NTT and accepted by Judge Fisher is also accepted by the Supreme Court of Appeal, as they are pondering what to do with this appeal, which they heard in May, then it's game over for the white male directors who pretended to be black female BEE beneficiaries. That's really the way it works.

Alec Hogg (12:28) When you say game over, Paul, does that mean that we will have...

Paul Hoffman (12:32) They're going to lose the case. On the civil side of things, they're going to have to obey the order that was made by Judge Fisher. On the criminal side of things, they are exposed to charges of fraud and of acting in a conflict-of-interest situation. And as you suggest, section 34A of PRECCA comes into it as well.

Alec Hogg (13:00) What about the BEE Act? Section 130 talks about fronting being a crime. If it's proven that this was a front, that's also criminal.

Paul Hoffman (13:12) Yeah, as well. But I think that sort of pales into insignificance when you see that they're on the hook for common-law crimes like fraud. It's a massive fraud.

Alec Hogg (13:22) Okay. But now, if you were employed by or consulting to NTT, surely you'd be submitting this new evidence quickly to the appeal court judges?

Paul Hoffman (13:41) That depends on the advice that they are getting from their counsel. If their counsel is bullish about the prospects of success (and you can always tell whether there are good prospects of success by the amount of flak that is heaped upon the head of the advocate representing each party in the Supreme Court of Appeal)... So if there was a great deal of healthy scepticism about the Dimension Data six expressed by the members of the court during the hearing of the matter, then they can go nap on it and simply say, you know, we have a good case. We don't have to make it better. We don't have to apply to put this new evidence before the appeal court, because it's out there and it evidences criminal activity on the part of the Dimension Data six.

Alec Hogg (14:39) Clearly the four that are now left issued their own salvo last night, and they said that Goodall is lying, effectively, and that he was compromised and he needed to make a deal. But there's still the Doc Watson issue. What if you were concerned...

Paul Hoffman (14:50) Yes, he has the difficulty. Watson seems to have disappeared into the long grass. I don't know what's become of him. There was a story that he was in Australia, and then he's not, he's back here. He seems to have been a sort of bit player in the conspiracy. But he's not making any statements. He's just keeping his head down and hoping that people forget about him. You and I haven't forgotten about him, and it's not going to happen, I don't think.

Alec Hogg (15:22) But Paul, what if he was your client? What would you be advising him? Also make a statement now, like Goodall?

Paul Hoffman (15:32) Yes, I think confessing, even if it is belated, and showing contrition will shorten the time spent in an orange overall. And that is something that they all have to take into account, because too many people guilty of white-collar crime get away with it. This is such an egregious example, on the findings of Judge Fisher, that there is actually no way out of the woods for these captains.

Alec Hogg (16:06) These are very, very wealthy men. Surely if they see the writing on the wall, they might be flight risks.

Paul Hoffman (16:18) They could be. If they see the writing on the wall, and I'm sure they've been advised that they are in some trouble, they could settle with NTT as Goodall has done already.

Goodall has been put through the wringer, because there was an arbitration due to start in London between him and NTT concerning irregularities that NTT was complaining about in relation to his conduct in NTT, both in South Africa and elsewhere. He communicated with the four who have now produced a press release, and indicated that he had really gone through hell, and that he'd decided that confessing now is a better idea than trying to brazen it out all the way through further appeals and litigation, both in the civil courts and the criminal courts, ending, as he sees it, in orange overalls for him.

So he's taken the line that he would prefer to come clean and put a stop to the defence that the Dimension Data six have put up, and their reliance on technical defences in the opposed motion that was decided on paper: not by referring it to oral evidence and not by chucking it out, but by actually finding for the applicant, which is unusual, but not impossible.

She's convinced, and she's got a 75-page judgment which, if you just read it as a layperson, makes perfect sense. What she has done is correct in law, and if that is the advice that has been given to Jeremy Ord and his cohorts, then they too should be looking to settle with NTT, because it seems that they are in for the high jump if they seek to fight on.

Alec Hogg (18:39) The feedback I have from inside the NTT camp, if you like, not directly but indirectly, is that they are [unclear] and they have gone so far. Big Japanese multinational: they are not backing down. They want to see these guys in orange overalls, because they feel that they were badly treated by their top executives, who got paid a lot of money to do the work in this country but actually were deceitful to them. That's their view. Does that override commercial sense? I mean, surely from a business perspective no one wants to spend years and years on legal fees and so on.

Paul Hoffman (19:22) It may be that they are posturing in order to scare the Dimension Data six. And I would certainly be scared if I were led to believe that the NTT board is really peeved about what happened and wants to see its pound of flesh, because you are then exposing yourself to prosecution and to a lengthy jail sentence for debasing BEE and defrauding NTT, which is what really happened if what NTT claims is correct.

And so far, the only judge to assess that has said it is so clearly correct that she was prepared to decide on the basis of the papers before her, without hearing any oral evidence, that there has been a fraud and a conflict of interest second to none in this case. She ordered those who perpetrated the fraud to unscramble the deal, give back the Bryanston campus of Dimension Data, and pay punitive costs.

Alec Hogg (20:41) Could Goodall turn state witness, given that it could not have been easy for him to make the call that he made, on any level? There's again feedback, suggestions that he's not well, and that it's a little bit of, I don't know, clearing out your home before you depart this mortal coil. But of course there's all kinds of feedback coming through, which may or may not be accurate. Would NTT require him to turn state witness, or could he even do that, given that he's really exposed himself now?

Paul Hoffman (21:21) Yes, we are revisiting the Cat Matlala situation, where he tried to do a plea bargain. That is how he could become a state witness in any prosecution that follows.

I would think that these people, being men of business and interested in the bottom line, and not willing to spend years of their lives arm-wrestling in a criminal court, will see sense and will settle with NTT. But assuming there is no settlement, and the fraud case against all six or four of them, or whoever is still left standing, proceeds, it is open to Goodall as an accused to do what Cat Matlala did, which was to say: I'm prepared to give evidence for the state in this matter if you are prepared to go easy on the punishment that I receive for what I've done.

That will depend, as happened with Cat Matlala, on whether the judge sitting in the matter is prepared to allow the section 204 procedure to go ahead. A deal is done between the prosecution and the person, but it has to be signed off by the magistrate or the judge hearing the matter. If there is such a deal, then Goodall gives evidence against his co-accused. If his evidence is satisfactory, the judge says, well done, you can take the lesser punishment that you agreed to accept when you did your plea bargain, which entitles you to the protection of section 204

Alec Hogg (23:19) Paul, David Shapiro said yesterday that if this was in the United States, they'd already have been in court. It would have been fast-tracked, because it's high-profile people and it raises big questions for foreign investors and so on. Do you think that in South Africa's instance it will be taken that seriously, and perhaps even accelerated, now that there appears to be quite a strong case that fraud was perpetrated?

Paul Hoffman (23:49) I haven't seen any reports that the criminal justice administration has taken any interest in this dispute at all. But let's assume that they are keeping their powder dry and waiting to see what happens in the Supreme Court of Appeal, and are interested in cleaning up the upper deck and bringing accountability to bear on people who involve themselves in the sort of deal that is in evidence here. Then I would expect that the outcome of the appeal, and of any further proceedings that may eventuate on the civil front, will inform what the prosecution does.

So let's assume that, as I expect will be the case, the Supreme Court of Appeal says: we're not going to entertain this appeal; we're satisfied that Judge Fisher got it exactly right; the appeal is dismissed with costs. Well, that puts the Dimension Data six, if I can use that term... It'll be the five, because one of them has jumped ship already, and we're not quite sure what Doc Watson is doing. But let's leave it to the last four, still maintaining their innocence in the face of the confession and in the face of the finding of the High Court in Gauteng. Assuming that is all still ongoing, then it is indeed time for the National Prosecuting Authority, IDAC, the Hawks, or whoever it may fall upon, to actually busy themselves and bring to bear the might of the criminal justice administration in South Africa, such as it is.

Alec Hogg (25:45) What about Accountability Now? How are you seeing this? Something to promote or turbocharge your cause, or just another obvious move in a direction for South Africa?

Paul Hoffman (25:58) You know, the problem, and Bonang Mohale has said this (he's the Chancellor of the University of the Free State), the problem in South Africa is greed. It's very clear that what motivated this deal was greed on the part of those involved. And that being so, to address the greed, you need to have a functional criminal justice administration, so that unbridled greed has consequences. At the moment there are no consequences.

The Dimension Data six made a calculation when they decided to attempt this particular scheme, and now that the wheels have fallen off they are still making bellicose noises, and the four that are left standing seem to think that they are going to get some relief in the Supreme Court of Appeal. I'm not sure if they've been advised that that is the case, but that is what they are putting out there. Accountability doesn't happen when corruption occurs with no consequences. There have to be consequences for corruption.

So Accountability Now addresses this on a systemic basis rather than a case-by-case basis. And we see the need to fix what the Auditor-General describes as a floundering criminal justice administration. There's a report just out: the criminal justice administration is floundering, operates in silos, is inefficient and ineffective. The Constitution says that the resources of the state must be put to work in a way that is effective, efficient and economic. That's just not happening in the criminal justice administration. And it's because we don't have anti-corruption machinery of state that is constitutionally compliant.

Paul Hoffman (28:10) We know what the Glenister case says. I've said it so many times, I go blue in the face when I say the word Glenister. But the bottom line is that until we have effective and efficient anti-corruption machinery of state, organised crime and serious corruption will continue in South Africa, because the calculation that is made at the outset of a scheme like this one is: don't worry about the downside. If we do get caught, we'll get away with it, because the gendarmerie will not wake up in time to catch us. We will be somewhere in the Cayman Islands by the time they do wake up.

Alec Hogg (28:55) Paul Hoffman is the chief executive and founder of Accountability Now. I'm Alec Hogg from BizNews.com.

BizNews Edge: Paul Hoffman on BEE fronting, fraud and the Dimension Data six (now five)