- The Supreme Court of Appeal suspended attorney Johan Nicolaas Bouwer pending a final determination of the Legal Practice Council’s application to have him struck off the roll or permanently suspended.
- The case involves claims that Bouwer did not account for more than R800,000 that had been deposited into a deceased estate account and that he moved funds into other accounts.
- The court ordered him to hand over his accounting records and files, prohibited him from operating trust accounts and barred him from administering estates or holding other fiduciary positions while the proceedings continue.
Attorney Johan Nicolaas Bouwer has been suspended from practising while the South African Legal Practice Council (LPC) pursues proceedings against him. The allegations are that he misappropriated funds from a deceased estate and failed to account to the beneficiaries.
The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) upheld his appeal against an order of the High Court in Pretoria but changed the original 18-month suspension to an interim suspension while the LPC’s application to have him struck off the roll or permanently suspended is finalised.
In a judgment delivered on 16 October 2026, Judge of Appeal BC Mocumie, writing for a unanimous court, found that the LPC had met the requirements for interim relief to protect the public. The SCA also ordered that the final proceedings must be heard within six months.
Dispute over deceased estate funds
The complaint against Bouwer was lodged with the LPC in August 2020 by Renate Louw, the daughter and intestate heir of the late Erica Steenberg, who died in June 2013. Louw’s father, Willem Adriaan Steenberg, had been appointed executor of the estate and instructed Bouwer in 2013 to assist with its administration.
According to Louw, she and her brother consulted Bouwer in March 2018 about the estate. He told them that funds had been received into an estate account at Mercantile Bank but that certain issues still needed to be resolved with the Master of the High Court before the money could be distributed.
Bouwer also told them that the funds were invested in an interest-bearing account through the trust account of Bouwer (Roodepoort) Incorporated while he awaited the Master’s consent. Louw alleged that she received no adequate explanation during 2018 and 2019 about why she had not received her inheritance. A subsequent attempt by another law firm to intervene also failed, with no response from Bouwer. She approached the LPC after the funds remained unpaid.
Allegations of unauthorised transfers
The LPC alleged that Bouwer opened a deceased estate account in 2014 into which R809,720.14 was deposited. Between 2014 and 2015, he allegedly transferred almost all the funds into various accounts, including his own trust account.
By August 2022, the account associated with the deceased estate had a debit balance of R1,201.32. The LPC alleged that Bouwer had failed to account for approximately R800,000 to the regulator or the beneficiaries. The investigation also identified deficiencies in the accounting for payments and interest allegedly earned on investments made for the beneficiaries’ benefit.
The LPC’s chartered accountant, Philasande Nyali, obtained bank statements directly from the bank to investigate the movement of the funds. Bouwer denied misappropriating the money. He maintained that he had acted on the executor’s instructions and explained that his practice when administering deceased estates was to withdraw funds from estate accounts and reinvest them elsewhere.
He said that some of the money had been invested by purchasing property for other clients, with the expectation of substantial returns.
SCA rejects preliminary objections
Bouwer challenged the LPC’s authority to institute proceedings and argued that the regulator should first have investigated the allegations through its disciplinary structures. He contended that the Gauteng provincial structure had taken the decision to institute proceedings and that its chairperson, Puleng Magdaline Keetse, could not act on behalf of the national body.
The SCA rejected this argument, finding that Bouwer had not challenged Keetse’s authority through the procedure provided for in Rule 7(1) of the Uniform Rules of Court before the High Court proceedings began. The court also rejected his argument that a disciplinary investigation and hearing had to precede an application to the High Court.
Relying on the statutory powers preserved by section 44 of the Legal Practice Act, the SCA explained that the High Court retained its authority to discipline legal practitioners independently of the LPC’s disciplinary process. The court said the existence of the LPC’s statutory investigative and disciplinary procedures did not prevent it from approaching the High Court for appropriate relief.
High Court applied the wrong test
The High Court had found that Bouwer’s conduct amounted to misappropriation and that he was no longer a fit and proper person to practise as an attorney. However, it concluded that striking him off the roll was unwarranted because he was working as a consultant and no longer handled trust funds.
It consequently imposed an 18-month suspension and ordered him to provide the LPC with a detailed account of the estate funds. The SCA found that the High Court had misdirected itself by applying the three-stage test used to determine whether a legal practitioner is fit and proper to practise, rather than the requirements for an interim interdict.
Judge Mocumie explained that the proceedings before the High Court concerned interim protection pending the determination of the LPC’s application for final relief.
At that stage, the LPC did not have to establish conclusively that Bouwer was unfit to practise. It had to demonstrate the requirements for an interim interdict, which are a prima facie right, a well-grounded apprehension of irreparable harm, a balance of convenience favouring the relief and the absence of another satisfactory remedy. The SCA found that all four requirements had been established.
Public protection justified interim suspension
The SCA found that Bouwer had not produced all the documents relating to the estate funds or adequately accounted for the amounts he said had been invested. It also found that he had not refuted the LPC’s serious allegations and that his reliance on the right to be heard did not answer the concerns raised about the handling of the funds.
The court emphasised that Bouwer continued providing legal advice as a consultant despite his former practice having closed and his no longer holding a fidelity fund certificate. It said members of the public, particularly in Roodepoort where his consultancy operated, could remain vulnerable to the alleged conduct while the investigation continued.
The court concluded that interim suspension was necessary to protect the public and safeguard trust funds while the LPC pursued its application for final relief.
Attorney ordered to hand over records
The SCA set aside the High Court’s order and substituted it with an interim suspension pending the hearing of Part B of the LPC’s application, which must be heard within six months. Bouwer must deliver his certificate of enrolment as an attorney to the registrar of the High Court within two weeks. If he fails to do so, the sheriff is authorised to take possession of it.
He is prohibited from handling or operating any trust account, subject to the appointment of a curator bonis, who will oversee the relevant records and other matters specified in the court order. He must also hand over his accounting records, files and documents, including details of receipts, payments, investments, interest earned and deceased and insolvent estates. If he fails to comply, the sheriff may search for and take possession of the material.
Until Part B is finalised, Bouwer may not act as an executor, curator or guardian of a minor, trustee of an insolvent estate or trust, liquidator of a company, or liquidator of a close corporation. The curator bonis is authorised to deal with the records and documents necessary to determine taxation, inspection fees and disbursements due to the firm, as well as matters relating to publication of the orders and the eventual winding-up process.
Bouwer was ordered to pay the costs of the application and the appeal on the attorney-and-client scale. The SCA’s order is interim relief. The LPC’s application for his removal from the roll or permanent suspension remains to be determined in Part B.
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