Andre de Ruyter, the incoming head of debt-burdened Eskom, is alleged to have engaged in questionable stock sales while working as a senior executive at Sasol in 2013, according to a forensic audit report. De Ruyter, was Sasol’s senior group executive for global chemicals and North American operations. The allegation is that de Ruyter together with then-chief financial officer, Christine Ramon- knew about cost overruns at the chemical project and sold the company’s stock before that information was disclosed to other executives. It is a serious case of insider trading, according to the report, which is a part of a risk and corporate governance assessment commissioned by the petrochemical conglomerate Sasol and undertaken by Werksmans Attorneys, a well- known corporate law firm.
Both executives deny the charges levelled against them and said they were not aware of the content of the report prepared by the law firm -Werksmans Attorneys. Sasol told that the sales were authorised. The report points out that both the people were aware of the overruns and if that information was widely known, the company would not have given the approval for selling the stocks. Also, the report points out that the information that were privy to both the people would have affected the stock prices. Substantiating the claim that both people aware of the financial status of the beleaguered company from the emails that were exchanged between them and both with other officials of the company, the report says that it is a major violation of corporate governance regulations and ethical standards set.
De Ruyter left Sasol in October 2013 before the report was published and become chief executive officer of Nampak, a packaging company. Ramon followed the suit after a month and took up her current role, as CFO of AngloGold Ashanti, the world’s third-biggest gold producer, in July 2014.
South Africa’s Financial Markets Act of 2012 defines insider trading with clarity: anyone who knowingly deals in securities with undisclosed insider information that could affect their value commits an offense. The Johannesburg Stock Exchange’s listing requirement mandates that directors need written authorisation to trade in their company’s stock and may not be given clearance in any period where they have access to price-sensitive information.
