If Carlos Ghosn was again indicted last Friday, he was not arrested for the fourth time and his lawyers filed in the evening a request for release on bail to end his detention started November 19 latest. This procedure has since been examined by a Tokyo court judge who must consult the prosecutor before taking his decision alone on Tuesday or Wednesday.
Although he can not oppose the judge’s final decision, the public prosecutor’s office should issue an unfavorable CEO Renault continues to investigate and accumulate new potential charges.
Charged since December 10 for having reduced its income between 2010 and 2015 in the financial reports that Nissan handed to the stock market authorities, the Franco-Brazilian boss is now also charged for current income tax reductions for the years 2016-2018 . His former lieutenant at Nissan, Greg Kelly, has also been indicted on both charges, as Nissan.
Indictment for breach of trust
The third indictment issued on Friday to Carlos Ghosn concerns “aggravated breach of trust” dating back to October 2008. The prosecutor suspects him of abusing his powers of CEO at the Japanese manufacturer to get out of a bad financial situation. The leader had, at the time, had to urgently find financial collateral to cover currency swaps, opened in a personal capacity, which showed potential losses of nearly 15 million euros.
After pushing Nissan to guarantee these contracts temporarily, he had obtained a generous collateral from a Saudi billionaire friend. And, according to the prosecutor, he then drew directly into capital of the group to “thank” this rich businessman for his help. A charge that both men deny firmly.
Research focuses on the Netherlands
In Tokyo, the prosecution and Nissan believe that other malpractices should soon be revealed. According to our information, a new case could thus burst around the structure Nissan Mitsubishi BV (NMBV), founded in June 2017 in the Netherlands by Nissan and Mitsubishi in order, in particular, to distribute bonuses to employees and managers of both manufacturers, then freshly associated, having particularly advanced the synergies between the two companies.
From its inception, NMBV had specified that its three directors – Nissan’s Carlos Ghosn, Hiroto Saikawa, and Mitsubishi’s Osamu Masuko – could not receive bonuses from the new entity. But less than a year later, in February 2018, Carlos Ghosn managed to get hired as an employee of NMBV to become suddenly eligible for pay.
This “contract” was signed by the French boss and the secretary of the young company, precisely directed by one of his lieutenants, but was never revealed to the other directors. After this signing, Carlos Ghosn was able to discreetly enjoy new payments.
Queries on more than 7 million bonus and salary
He received a hiring bonus of 1.46 million euros before setting himself an annual salary of 5.82 million euros. He also arranged a prepayment of his “salary” of the first quarter of 2019 in order to avoid a tax increase. The manager has again obtained unjustified payments equivalent to 498,000 euros. According to our information, Carlos Ghosn has, in total, received 7 million euros from Nissan Mitsubishi BV between the creation of the company and his arrest in November. He had attended only one meeting of the company. It was last August.
While the revelations pile up against the former Nissan president and his former deputy, Greg Kelly, the Japanese automaker appears to have extended his investigation to other executives of the company who had his favors. The group would be interested in particular information that would hold Jose Munoz and he has not, for now, not wanted to share. Carlos Ghosn had, for years, entrusted the management of the activities in the United States to José Munoz before appointing him head of the performance department. The former executive officially resigned on Friday.