Posted 1/18/2019 10:03:42 PM
Mitsubishi and Nissan study joint legal actions against Ghosn
TOKYO, Jan. 18 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The Japanese automakers Nissan and Mitsubishi have presented the results of an internal investigation in relation to the former president of the two firms, Carlos Ghosn, in which they have concluded that the manager charged irregularly 7.82 million euros of a ‘ joint venture ‘created to explore possible synergies between the two firms.
As reported by the two corporations in separate statements, Nissan and Mitsubishi created in June 2017 a joint venture, called Nissan-Mitsubishi BV (NMBV), based in the Netherlands, in order to explore and detect possible synergies between the two firms within the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance.
Ghosn was appointed general director of this joint venture, 50% owned by the two firms, and investigations have concluded that the manager irregularly received a payment of 7.82 million euros for this task.
Nissan stressed that, despite the fact that any decision on the compensation of the CEO should be approved by the board of directors of this joint venture, Ghosn closed this personal contract without discussing it with the board, or with its members who were the CEO from Nissan, Hiroto Saikawa, and from the Mitsubishi CEO, Osamu Masuko.
Mitsubishi, meanwhile, acknowledged having “hidden” this payment to Ghosn when the manager was arrested in November last year and noted that, subsequently, the internal investigation carried out by the two firms revealed the details of these irregular payments.
“The investigation did not find other suspects of irregular conduct in Mitsubishi or in its subsidiary companies,” said Mitsubishi, who said he will continue to investigate the facts and is considering taking legal action with Nissan against Ghosn.
JOINT VENTURE.
The objective of NMBV in its creation was to facilitate the generation of synergies between Nissan and Mitsubishi, for which it received a fee of 15.62 million euros for this service in April 2018. Between April and November 2018, Ghosn received 7, 82 million euros inadequately for this same concept.
“The payment was made as compensation on the basis of a labor agreement that NMBV and Ghosn closed to appoint him general director of the company, however, the labor contract was signed by a person not authorized in NMBV, so it was not an appropriate process to pay compensation to Ghosn, “they assured from Mitsubishi.
The company concluded that the agreement and the payment to Ghosn were made possible by the directive’s instructions to different Nissan executives, who warned him of the need to receive approval from Saikawa and Masuko.
However, Ghosn sealed this compensation agreement without notifying the members of the board of directors of the joint venture. Nissan noted that neither Masuko nor Saikawa received any compensation or payments from NMBV.
“Mitsubishi Motors takes this incident with a company linked to Mitsubishi Motors very seriously and will try to reinforce internal controls within the company, including those of the subsidiaries and the companies with which it works,” the automobile corporation added.
For its part, Nissan confirmed with inappropriate behavior the payments received by the former president of the company and stressed that it will consider taking measures to recover all improper payments received by Ghosn.