Skip to Main Content

Steinhoff

On February 15, 2022, following three years of complex multiparty investigations, litigations, and court approvals by the District Court of Amsterdam and the High Court of South Africa, a $1.6 billion global settlement became effective with Steinhoff International Holdings N.V. and the former Steinhoff International Holdings Proprietary Limited (together “Steinhoff”), Steinhoff’s auditor Deloitte & Touche South Africa and Deloitte Accountants B.V., and Steinhoff’s former directors and officers and their D&O insurers. The settlement is the largest securities settlement outside the United States to date. It resolves claims brought by Steinhoff common stock shareholders before courts in the Netherlands, Germany, and South Africa for losses they sustained as a result of the Company’s December 2017 revelation that it had discovered accounting irregularities and that it had overstated profits by $7.4 billion between 2009 and 2017. Kessler Topaz, representing over 40 institutional investors from around the globe, initially filed legal action in the Netherlands seeking recovery of investor losses and a judicial examination.