By Courtney Kaplan, Olivia Sousa Höll, and Robin De Backer
Introduction
South Africa’s anti-corruption litigation environment in 2025 continued to evolve from a model that was historically centred on criminal prosecution alone into a blended enforcement ecosystem. That ecosystem now routinely combines criminal prosecution, procurement and legality review litigation, and asset recovery proceedings under the Prevention of Organised Crime Act 121 of 1998 (“POCA”), often running in parallel and on different timelines. The State Capture Commission remains a major driver of the litigation pipeline, but the litigation techniques that are producing the most immediate, measurable outcomes are frequently civil and asset-focused, particularly where dissipation risk is present or where unlawful contracting can be attacked through legality review and remedial relief.
This development sits on a constitutional baseline: the State bears obligations to maintain anti-corruption capacity that is adequately independent and effective, and the design, resourcing and decision-making of enforcement institutions remain justiciable where independence is compromised, as seen in Glenister v President of the Republic of South Africa and Others, Helen Suzman Foundation v President of the Republic of South Africa and Others, and Nxasana v Corruption Watch NPC and Others.
Key developments in 2025
State Capture implementation and the visible conversion of recommendations into matters
The Presidency’s July 2025 progress report (assessing implementation as at the end of March 2025) provides unusually litigation-relevant detail about the conversion of State Capture Commission recommendations into court processes. It records that the President’s response identified 202 recommendations for criminal investigation, that 42 recommendations had been brought to court by 31 March 2025 (approximately 20.8% of the total), and that these cases were consolidated into 11 matters involving 77 accused, comprising of 49 individuals and 28 entities. It further records that four matters had concluded with guilty verdicts and identifies them in summary form as in The Presidency, Progress Report on implementation of actions in the President’s response to the recommendations of the State Capture Commission, July 2025 including criminal-investigation recommendation figures, consolidation of matters, and asset recovery totals. This reporting is important not merely for its statistics, but because it confirms a consolidated, task-force approach spanning the National Prosecuting Authority (“NPA”), South African Police Service (“SAPS”), the Asset Forfeiture Unit (“AFU”), and relevant Director of Public Prosecutions (“DPP”) offices, which is a structural indicator of how future trial litigation is likely to be organised.
Strengthening prosecutorial and investigative capacity, including the Investigating Directorate Against Corruption
On prosecutorial capability, the NPA’s 2024/25 Annual Report shows both capacity-building and performance outputs in corruption and serious complex commercial crime. In the National Director of Public Prosecutions (“NDPP’s”) foreword, the NPA reports that, over the past five years, 1,692 persons were convicted of corruption-related offences and 1,590 of complex commercial crime offences, and that Investigating Directorate Against Corruption (“IDAC”) has already enrolled 50 high-profile matters involving 332 accused persons and entities according to the National Prosecuting Authority, Annual Report 2024/25, including conviction statistics, SCCU conviction rate reporting, and IDAC enrolment figures. The same annual report records that the Specialised Commercial Crime Unit (“SCCU”) obtained 235 convictions in 268 serious and complex commercial crime verdict cases (an 88% conviction rate), and that 380 people and companies were convicted of corruption in the preceding year.
From a litigation perspective, these indicators matter because they suggest that the prosecuting authority is increasingly equipped to run large, document-heavy matters with digital evidence and complex financial trails, a shift that tends to increase the volume of interlocutory and case-management litigation but also strengthens the prospects of matters reaching trial with coherent evidential architecture. This conviction rate represents a slight decline from 2023/24 and a notabledecline from 2022/23.
The SCCU’s 88% conviction rate in 2024/25 indicates the lowest level in five years and reflects a decline. The SCCU achieved a 90.5% conviction rate in 2021/22 and higher rates in 2022/23. In 2023/24, the conviction rate dropped to 88.7%, followed by the 88% in 2024/25. This decline raises questions on whether the increasing complexity of the matters being prosecuted, including state capture cases with several accused and large amounts of evidence, places strain on resources and court capacity. The NPA acknowledged that SCCU court backlogs contribute to witness memory attrition, evidentiary challenges and lower conviction outcomes. From a litigation perspective, the decline indicates that accused persons in complicated criminal matters may be gaining from protracted timelines and interlocutory attrition according to the National Prosecuting Authority Annual Report 2024/25, including conviction statistics, SCCU conviction rate reporting, and IDAC enrolment figures, as well as the NPA Annual Report 2021/22.
Asset recovery as a front-end enforcement strategy
Asset recovery remains one of the most effective litigation levers in the anti-corruption toolkit because it can operate independently of criminal trial timelines and can disrupt benefit and dissipation early. The Presidency’s July 2025 progress report records that, as of 31 March 2025, the total amount recovered linked to State Capture matters was R10.933 billion, comprised of Special Investigation Unit (“SIU”) recoveries of R2.892 billion and AFU recoveries of R8.040 billion, with assets under restraint or preservation orders totalling R10.601 billion.
The constitutional and interpretive foundations of POCA asset recovery have been repeatedly tested, and the courts have generally upheld robust asset forfeiture and preservation regimes, subject to proportionality, instrumentality, and the statutory safeguards built into POCA’s scheme. In NDPP v Mohamed, the Constitutional Court confirmed the constitutional validity of POCA’s preservation and forfeiture mechanisms in the context of Constitutional section 25 challenges. In Prophet, the Constitutional Court engaged the proportionality analysis and constitutional defensibility of forfeiture on the facts. In Mohunram, the Court further developed the proportionality and instrumentality enquiry in forfeiture practice. The Supreme Court of Appeal has likewise grappled with the breadth of “instrumentality” and the limits of overreach, including in NDPP v RO Cook Properties and NDPP v Van Staden.
The practical litigation point is that asset recovery is no longer an adjunct; it is frequently the most immediate form of accountability and loss mitigation, and it can materially alter settlement dynamics and the viability of defence strategies.
Procurement and legality review litigation as a core anti-corruption pathway
A great deal of anti-corruption litigation in South Africa is, in substance, administrative and legality litigation challenging unlawful procurement outcomes and irregular contracting, particularly involving organs of state and state-owned enterprises (“SOEs”). The constitutional procurement framework is routinely operationalised through litigation that seeks review, set-aside, substitution, or just-and-equitable relief. AllPay remains central authority for the intensity of constitutional scrutiny in procurement and the remedial approach, including supervisory relief in appropriate cases. The Constitutional Court’s decisions in Gijima and Aurecon have also become pivotal to state self-review and the legality delay doctrines, which frequently become the battleground in litigation aimed at undoing unlawful contracts long after implementation has begun. The Supreme Court of Appeal’s decision in Qaukeni has continuing relevance where municipalities or organs of state conclude procurement contracts without compliance with prescripts, with the consequence that contracts may be declared invalid. Oudekraal continues to supply the foundational principle that unlawful administrative acts may have legal consequences until set aside, which is frequently invoked both offensively and defensively in procurement and recovery litigation.
These cases collectively reinforce an important strategic reality: even where criminal prosecution is slow, legality review and procurement remedies can be pursued earlier and can unlock civil recovery, disgorgement, or remedial restructuring, often with significant public-interest and governance implications.
Sector-based enforcement and institutional reform
The National Anti-Corruption Strategy continues to be implemented through sector-focused initiatives, including in procurement-heavy and risk-exposed sectors. In May 2025, the SIU publicly announced the Inaugural Meeting of the Water Sector Anti-Corruption Forum, intended to strengthen collaboration and accelerate referrals and interventions in that sector.
At the institutional reform level, Parliament continued in 2025 to consider proposals for a new permanent anti-corruption agency, commonly framed as an Office of Public Integrity, with evidence to the Justice Committee supporting an entity intended as a statutory Chapter 9 body according to the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa’s press release: Justice Committee hears recommendation to incorporate SIU into new permanent anti-corruption agency. As these proposals mature, they will almost inevitably be measured against the Constitutional Court’s independence jurisprudence in Glenister and Helen Suzman Foundation, and against more recent prosecutorial-independence litigation such as Nxasana.
A considerable institutional milestone in 2025 was the removal of South Africa from the Financial Action Task Force (“FATF”) greylist on 24 October 2025 according to the National Treasury’s Media Statement. The greylisting, which was imposed in February 2023 as a result of strategic weaknesses in South Africa’s anti-money laundering and counter-terrorist financing framework, required 22 action items to be finalised, including legislative reform, beneficial ownership transparency, and a sustained increase in complex money laundering investigations and prosecutions. Many action items showed improvements in the investigation and prosecution of serious and complicated money laundering, which intersects with the corruption enforcement pipeline. The National Treasury has acknowledged that the delisting is a milestone rather than an endpoint, and South Africa faces a further round of FATF evaluation beginning in late 2026.
Ongoing challenges
Notwithstanding tangible progress indicators, corruption matters of this scale continue to be vulnerable to delay risk. The reasons are structural and predictable: financial evidence is voluminous, mutual legal assistance is slow, trial logistics are heavy, and interlocutory litigation is common. High-profile corruption litigation frequently includes constitutional challenges, applications concerning admissibility and disclosure, review proceedings aimed at staying or delaying prosecutions, and case-management disputes. These dynamics sit alongside fair-trial rights, including the right to a trial that begins and concludes without unreasonable delay, a topic addressed in Sanderson.
Outlook and predictions for 2026
The most likely litigation trajectory for 2026 is an increased number of trial-stage matters as more State Capture-linked cases mature from investigation and charge to trial management. The Presidency’s reporting of consolidated matters and enrolled cases, combined with the NPA’s reporting on IDAC enrolments, suggests a continuing build-up of trial inventory and associated interlocutory litigation.
A further trend is likely to be increased emphasis on corporate accountability and enforcement against private sector actors who benefited from, facilitated, or failed to prevent corrupt schemes. International peer review continues to place pressure on South Africa to strengthen foreign bribery enforcement capacity and outcomes, including detection and enforcement effectiveness. TheOrganisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (“OECD”) Working Group on Bribery adopted South Africa’s Phase 4 Report in June 2025, and the report addresses, among other topics, enforcement and institutional capacity expectations under the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention framework.
The Phase 4 Report notes that South Africa has improved its detection and investigation of foreign bribery cases since its 2014 Phase 3 evaluation, opening investigations into 18 new foreign bribery allegations and employing better investigative techniques. The Report also mentions that South Africa has not yet obtained a foreign bribery conviction or imposed sanctions against companies or individuals, and that ongoing enforcement challenges persist across 14 open investigations. The Working Group has recommended that South Africa expand its detection sources, improve its capacity to receive evidence from regional counterparts, and guarantee it has appropriate frameworks for sanctioning companies for foreign bribery.
Asset recovery litigation is also likely to intensify, both because it can move faster than trials and because it produces measurable outcomes. Expect continued reliance on preservation, restraint and forfeiture applications, as well as civil recovery claims against recipients and facilitators, with proportionality and instrumentality remaining the key doctrinal points of contest.
Conclusion
In 2025, South Africa’s anti-corruption litigation framework showed cautious but measurable progress, most clearly reflected in the consolidation and enrolment of State Capture-linked matters, the NPA’s reported performance outputs in complex commercial crime and corruption, and significant asset recovery figures reported by the Presidency. At the same time, the enduring litigation battlegrounds remain familiar: procurement legality, delay and interlocutory tactics, and POCA proportionality disputes. The trajectory into 2026 points to increased trial activity, sustained asset recovery litigation, and heightened scrutiny of both institutional design and corporate accountability. South Africa’s removal from the FATF greylist in October 2025 and the OECD Phase 4 evaluation show that the international community is watching closely, and that enforcement credibility will depend not only on headline conviction numbers but on the depth and sustainability of institutional capacity.
Anti-Fraud & Corruption Law in Africa 