SA’s apparent inability to expeditiously prosecute corporate high-flyers accused of dodgy dealings stands in sharp contrast to overseas. The executives at the heart of the Enron scandal, for example, were dealt a swift legal blow for their role in the spectacular 2001 collapse of the energy trading utility that lost investors billions.

Within five years, chairman Kenneth Lay and CEO Jeffrey Skilling were convicted of intent to commit securities and wire fraud. Lay died of a heart attack before he was sentenced; Skilling is serving a 24-year jail term.

Despite the complexity of a case woven behind energy swaps and derivative contracts and argued in one of the most litigious societies in the world, the US trial was wrapped up in two months – including testimony from 22 witnesses.

There are other cases that point to a highly efficient system that is designed to punish corporate crooks. In 2001 US lifestyle guru Martha Stewart was found guilty of insider trading after she dumped about US$228 000 worth of ImClone shares the day before the Food & Drug Administration rejected ImClone’s application for approval of a cancer drug. The stock plunged on the announcement. Just three years later, she was serving a five-month sentence.

Yet in SA, consider the case of Tigon CEO Gary Porritt, who was arrested in December 2002, and director Sue Bennett, who was arrested four months later.

While Skilling has already served nearly two years of his 24-year sentence, Porritt and Bennett are still fighting in court to get free legal defence (as the constitution suggests they can) from the Legal Aid Board.

But this is a precursor to the main case, which still isn’t close to being tried in court. Says Porritt: “Right from the beginning, the state has delayed it.”

In legal papers three years ago, Porritt bemoaned the nine postponements (at that stage), claiming he was “treated as a pariah by many former friends, colleagues and associates… there is a tremendous reluctance in the business community to contract [me as I am] perceived to be a criminal due to the prolonged period the state has taken to bring the trial to court.”

The same could be said of Regal Bank CEO Jeff Levenstein, who was arrested in May 2003. After numerous delays, final arguments are now taking place. Levenstein’s attorney, Michael Werner, says: “It should have been wrapped up a long time ago, but factually we started it only some time last year. We ended up in court for 110 days.”

So why has it taken so long? Werner explains: “The facts of the case are very complicated, dealing with things like section 38 and section 424 contraventions of the Companies Act. The majority of the charges relate to financial structures, which are quite complex.”

Abroad, tax cases have been prosecuted with some zeal. To avoid the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the first winner of reality TV show Survivor, Richard Hatch, should have stayed on the island of Palau Tiga off the coast of Borneo where the series was shot.

He was convicted in 2006 of tax evasion on his $1m prize and sentenced to 51 months in prison. Just how he thought he could get away with this, when millions of TV viewers saw him collect the cheque, is a mystery.

Hotelier and real estate magnate Leona Helmsley was not only famous for leaving $12m in her will to her dog, Trouble, but also for getting into trouble with the IRS. She was convicted in 1989 of $1,2m federal income tax evasion. She once said: “Only the little people pay taxes.”

Gangster Al Capone once remarked that tax laws were a joke because “the government can’t collect legal taxes on illegal money”. That didn’t help when the IRS charged the infamous Chicago mob boss with failure to pay four years’ worth of taxes. Capone was sentenced to 11 years in jail and an $80 000 fine in 1931.

More recently, actor Wesley Snipes was prevented from entering SA for presenting a fake passport, and was arrested in 2006 for not paying taxes of more than $12m. In 1997 Snipes declared no income, but the US government says he earned $7m that year. In February, he was found guilty of failing to file returns.

It’s little consolation for Snipes that had he been arrested in SA instead, he’d have many years before expecting to see the inside of a jail cell.