One of the Campus Six has cracked. Jason Goodall, former chief executive of Dimension Data and NTT, signs a statement naming four former colleagues and agrees to pay NTT R208.6 million. In a special BizNews Edge, Alec Hogg reads the private WhatsApp Goodall sent those same colleagues on the day he settled, puts the four’s detailed reply on the record, and asks why a man would pay that much to say something untrue. Paul Hoffman SC explains why the appeal court may never consider the statement at all. Alec then turns to Africa Bitcoin Corporation, formerly Altvest, where the board has publicly opposed its own controlling shareholder. And he answers the questions put to him on social media: how BizNews came to own shares in the company, why it hasn’t sold them, and the disclosure he admits he should have made..Listen here.Edited transcript of the interview.Alec Hogg: Hello, and welcome to this special edition of the BizNews Edge. I'm Alec Hogg.Well, normally the Edge is dedicated to focused interviews, but every now and then I slow down and provide context where it matters. This is one of those, because two stories landed this week that deserve much more than a headline. Both raise questions I want to answer properly. One of those questions is about me.But first, Dimension Data. One of the so-called Campus Six has cracked. He signed a confession and agreed to pay NTT, the Japanese multinational, R208.6 million. I've seen the private message he sent his co-respondents on the day that he settled. That was Monday. And I've heard from both sides since then.And then Africa Bitcoin Corporation, the company once known as Altvest, where the former CEO's shareholding vehicle wants new faces on the board, but the directors who remain have told the stock market, through the Stock Exchange News Service, it doesn't want them.And I'll answer, on the record, questions put to me about BizNews's own connection to that company.So let's start with the deal. In December 2019, Dimension Data sold its head office, The Campus in Bryanston, to a black women-led consortium. Bloomberg later put the value of the deal at R1.4 billion. The deal lifted DiData from level four to level two on B-BBEE. Everybody was happy.Then, in 2021, a whistleblower came forward. NTT, DiData's Japanese owner, commissioned a forensic investigation on the strength of that, and then went to court. In November 2024, Judge Denise Fisher in the Johannesburg High Court declared the sale void. She found that the six had "entered into an illegal scheme designed to appropriate for themselves a secret financial benefit". She ordered The Campus returned, and she also awarded punitive costs.The six appealed. The Supreme Court of Appeal heard them in May and reserved judgment. We're waiting for that judgment to be given.On Wednesday this week, the six became five. Jason Goodall, former chief executive of Dimension Data and of NTT in the UK, has settled with the Japanese. His signed statement, dated the 5th of October and confirmed by NTT as authentic, says that the executives', quote, "undisclosed interests were held through nominees in a structure designed to keep our names hidden".He calls it "a very serious breach of fiduciary duty". He apologises "unreservedly". And he names Jeremy Ord, Steven Nathan, Saki Missaikos and Grant Bodley. He doesn't name the sixth, Bruce "Doc" Watson, who has kept very quiet.The four hit back almost immediately. A few hours later we had a report where they said Goodall wasn't authorised to speak for them. His admission is "entirely inconsistent" with what he said under oath. The wording was "negotiated and agreed" as a term of his settlement with NTT. In their words, Goodall let NTT use him "as a weapon".Well, David Shapiro has watched these men since they made DiData the darling of the JSE in the late '80s and much of the '90s. He put it simply when we spoke on Wednesday: "When you've got six people as part of a deal, someone's going to crack."I go a long way back with this crew myself. In July 2000, DiData moved its primary listing to London. London required directors to disclose share sales. At the time, the JSE didn't. So when five DiData directors sold shares in the company, it was disclosed in London at the end of January 2001. We picked it up at Moneyweb, which I then owned, and reported it. Doc Watson was one of the five.Only five months later came a profit warning that smacked the share price, beginning a long slide that dropped it an astonishing 98%.At the time the executives said that those sales, which were made just months before the profit warning, were funding employee options, and that they took a hiding along with everyone else.In a follow-up interview this morning, David apologised to Jeremy Ord for muddling those dates on Wednesday. Gracious. The dates were never the issue. The timing was.By the way, I was never invited back to a DiData pro-am after that.When Judge Fisher's judgment came out and we covered it, Jeremy Ord phoned me. Got the full Alex Ferguson hairdryer treatment. And this week I asked him to talk. He referred me to Neil Lazarus SC, who advises the four from outside the court case. Neil tells us he's not their advocate, just their adviser. He says he'd love to engage, but not until the appeal is decided. I'm looking forward to that.So why did Goodall crack? Well, David's first answer was self-preservation: "He'll be the good guy. Everyone else is going to carry the can."That's the four's case too. To back it up, they quoted bits of a WhatsApp that Goodall sent them. They've since sent me the full message. Here's the rest.He sent it on Monday afternoon, the 5th of October. After "a brutal weekend" and six tough months preparing for the arbitration, he told his former colleagues that he'd settled with NTT, in the UK and in South Africa.And then the numbers. Settling costs him "in excess of R200m". His own legal costs are "around R150m". "So R350m in total. Makes me feel sick," he said.Then the key line. It's a "financial disaster", he writes, "but it's still multiples less than what the potential cost could easily have been. I would have been totally wiped out."He can't say more, he says, because of confidentiality clauses, but he signs off hoping they're all doing okay.So what does it explain? It explains the pressure. The four are right about that. Nobody spends R150 million on lawyers and then signs a confession for fun. This was a man looking at ruin.But read it again. Here's a man who knows the evidence better than anyone outside NTT. He weighed the odds and decided fighting on could cost him "multiples" more. Innocent people do settle. But in a private message to the very men he'd just named, nowhere does Goodall say that what he signed is untrue.David paraphrased it this morning: "Sorry boys, sold you down the river. But I hope you're okay."David Shapiro also put the dilemma bluntly. Goodall said one thing in his affidavits and the opposite in his statement. "He's lied somewhere along the line," Shapiro says. The four's answer: only the affidavits were under oath. But why would a man agree to pay R208.6 million to tell a lie?David's got one theory. NTT's claims against Goodall went wider than The Campus, perhaps to how he ran the business. Settle the lot, and the statement becomes part of the price. Possible. Unproven. NTT isn't saying.So, duress or conscience? Maybe both.On Thursday, the four sent me a detailed reply, which we've published on BizNews. Fairness demands that I put their case.They've never denied, they say, that they participated indirectly in The Campus deal. But NTT funded 95% of the price through a vendor loan. Their own stake was R70 million. All profits were to go to NTT, and nothing could be sold or refinanced without NTT's say-so. NTT has since used that loan to take The Campus back, and the four's R70 million has never been repaid. In their words: "The executives have received nothing, and there was never a way for them to receive anything."They make another point worth remembering. Nobody in this saga has been cross-examined. Judge Fisher decided on affidavits. Goodall's UK case was a confidential arbitration.And they corrected me. On Wednesday, I suggested Goodall's payment might be roughly a sixth share of the R1.4 billion. Well, I was completely wrong, and they said it. NTT's claim against him was over his exit payment from the company, mostly long-term incentives. Fair correction, accepted. They also correct David: Doc Watson lives in South Africa, not Australia, as David suggested.But one line in their reply stopped me. The purpose of the structure, they say, was "to improve the BEE rating of the business while retaining control of the Campus".That's better empowerment points while control stays where it was. Hmm. The B-BBEE Act has a word for arrangements like that. Whether this was one is for the courts, not me, to decide. But it's a strange thing to put in writing.David reckons their appeal turns on proving NTT knew. I'm a little jaundiced here, because years ago at Moneyweb we employed the late Jim Jones, a former editor of Business Day and the Financial Mail. He diverted fees owed to us into his own account in Mauritius. When he was confronted by our lawyers, after the shock had subsided and he'd found his own lawyers, their first response was that Alec knew all along, i.e. me. I hadn't. I hadn't a clue that the late Mr Jones was taking that money and putting it into his own account, hidden in Mauritius.Goodall's statement says NTT didn't know either. That's a dagger in the heart of the four's defence.But credit where it's due, though. NTT's lawyers, Stein Scop, invited my questions. I sent a long list. They declined to comment. The four, at least, are putting their side. As Dave and I agreed this morning, nothing here is black and white.For the law, I turned to Paul Hoffman SC of Accountability Now, and a speaker at the recent BizNews Conference. The full interview is on BizNews TV.His first point is sobering. The Supreme Court of Appeal decides on the record, that is, all the information that was before Judge Fisher. Goodall's confession isn't in it. Paul says unless someone applies to lead new evidence, the judges must ignore it. They may read the media, Paul says, but legally they're in a bit of an artificial position.On the merits, he's blunt. Paul thinks the four are "up against it". He calls their appeal "both a filibuster and a hugely technical defence". In effect: please don't find us to be crooks without evidence tested in the witness box. That's the four's cross-examination point. Paul's answer is that on their own affidavits, "it's pretty clear there was a dirty deal being done, pretending to be a BEE deal". Well, that's his view. The appeal court judges will form their own.If the findings stand, Paul says the criminal exposure is serious. Fraud, he calls it. Conflicts of interest under section 75 of the Companies Act. The duty under section 34 of PRECCA to report fraud of over R100,000. And fronting, a crime under section 130 of the B-BBEE Act, though Paul says that "pales into insignificance" next to fraud.Could Goodall become a state witness? Section 204 of the Criminal Procedure Act lets an accomplice who testifies honestly be discharged from prosecution. Paul thinks that door is open, and he points to Cat Matlala's attempt at a plea deal in the R228 million police tender case.And Doc Watson? Paul's advice would be to confess. David reads Watson's silence the same way.Will NTT settle with the rest? From what I hear indirectly from people close to the company, the Japanese are in no mood to back down.And the criminal side? Well, "I haven't seen any reports that the criminal justice administration has taken any interest in this dispute at all," is what Paul told me. CurrencyNews did report last year that the Hawks had taken statements, but since then, crickets.Paul quotes Bonang Mohale, chancellor of the University of the Free State: South Africa's problem is greed, and greed only has consequences when the justice system works. These schemes rest on a calculation, Paul says: if we get caught, the "gendarmerie" won't wake up in time. A bit Pink Pantherish, isn't it?Until we have the independent anti-corruption machinery the Constitutional Court demanded in the Glenister case, that calculation keeps paying off, says Advocate Hoffman.So now to the company formerly known as Altvest. Well, yesterday afternoon Africa Bitcoin Corporation issued a statement on the Stock Exchange News Service that shareholders holding 76% of its ordinary shares have demanded a meeting to appoint two new non-executive directors. The lead shareholder is WGW Capital, the vehicle of former CEO Warren Wheatley.Last month, the FSCA debarred Wheatley for 20 years over three trades worth R301 in total on the Cape Town Stock Exchange four years ago. He disputes the findings, but to prevent damage, he resigned from his company as CEO on the 21st of September.Section 61(3) of the Companies Act lets holders of 10% of the votes demand a meeting. These shareholders hold 76%. Directors are elected by a simple majority. The board can't stop it, and says it will convene the meeting.But the directors have used the one tool that they have: their voice. They say the board does not support the appointment, citing "governance and regulatory integrity, given the exceptional circumstances currently facing the group".So we've got a listed company's board telling its own majority shareholders, in public, that it fears what their nominees on the board would mean. This is rare stuff.A debarment stops Wheatley working in financial services. He has appealed. But it doesn't take away his votes. The JSE and the FSCA will be reading this closely, and so will I.But why stop at two seats? Section 71 of the Companies Act lets shareholders remove any director by ordinary resolution, after notice and a chance to be heard. A bloc with 76% doesn't need to win any arguments. It just needs a meeting. It's already demanded one, and it's been accepted. Two non-executive directors could be the first move, the opening act of perhaps a clean sweep, especially now that the directors have gone against the majority shareholders.But that brings me to questions put to me on social media about BizNews's own link to this company. They're fair. So here are some straight answers.From April 2000, or sorry, 2021, to March 2022, BizNews ran a year-long advertising campaign for Altvest, which was then a startup. Altvest was cash-strapped, so they asked if they could pay in shares instead. That's the R3.5 million that's in the Altvest annual report under marketing and advertising.We're a media company, not an investor. Both sides always understood that as soon as we could, we'd sell the shares to turn the advertising we'd provided into cash. We have sold as many as we could, almost half by now. But with all the chaos happening, and with us being a media company covering this for pretty good reason, our sales were suspended.Our stockbrokers had a standing order to sell, but they're not able to sell any more shares until such time as I give them permission with a personal sign-off. And I won't be doing that anytime soon.Usually, when I interview people from any company, I do say whether or not we own shares. In my recent interviews with Warren Wheatley, I might have missed that. I apologise. In some of them, I know clearly that I did say we're a shareholder in this business. But it's inexcusable not to tell our community that we have an interest in this whole matter. From now on, I will say so every time anything is spoken about ABC.In the same spirit, Warren Wheatley and Stafford Masie, now the interim CEO, spoke at our BNC#9 conference in August. No strings attached. We don't sell speaker slots. ABC later took a small sponsorship that had nothing to do with who spoke, and indeed I didn't even know it was happening. It was managed by our commercial director.So judge us on our record. We reported the debarment, the leave, the resignation, and now an announcement that's hardly flattering to the former CEO.So what do these two stories tell us?One: watch Bloemfontein. If the appeal court upholds Judge Fisher, the Campus Four face the civil bill and far louder questions about criminal charges. If it doesn't, Goodall's confession this week becomes the most expensive footnote in South African corporate history.Two: at ABC, the former Altvest, there are now two power centres, a board that has drawn a line and a controlling shareholder that wants to redraw it. Thinly traded shares plus a boardroom fight means volatility.And three, the common thread: accountability in South Africa still depends on private litigants with deep pockets. NTT spent years and fortunes getting here. The Hawks took statements, and then?So disclose early, disclose often. And that's a message for executives and journalists alike.That's the BizNews Edge. My full interviews with Paul Hoffman and David Shapiro, riveting as they are, are on BizNews.com and BizNews TV. Until the next time, I'm Alec Hogg.