Page "Schabir Shaik trial" Paragraph 71

Shaik and his companies ( Nkobi Holdings and Nkobi Investments ) then appealed to the Constitutional Court to question the validity of the confiscation order regarding R33 million of their assets.

The original court authorised the confiscation under the Prevention of Organised Crime Act ( POCA ), since it held that they constitute proceeds of crime.

In April 2008 the Constitutional Court dismissed this appeal, finding that Shaik and his companies had received their shareholdings in Thint, a major ground for the asset forfeiture order, as a result of " the corrupt payments " made to Zuma, and that the remainder of the order related to dividends that accrued due to this shareholding.

The court found that POCA permitted that all benefits that had arisen from the commission of a crime, whether directly or indirectly, may be confiscated by the trial court after it convicted an accused ; and that the trial court had discretion to determine the appropriate amount in any given case.

The court concluded that Shaik and his companies had not shown that the High Court improperly exercised its discretion to determine the amount to be confiscated nor that the order confiscating both the shareholding and the dividend was " disturbingly inappropriate ".