Nissan believes alliance partner Renault's board will back its decision to oust Chairman Carlos Ghosn when it sees details of the Japanese carmaker's investigation into his alleged misconduct, Chief Executive Hiroto Saikawa said in a newspaper interview.
Nissan believes alliance partner Renault's board will back its decision to oust Chairman Carlos Ghosn when it sees details of the Japanese carmaker's investigation into his alleged misconduct, Chief Executive Hiroto Saikawa said in a newspaper interview.
Nissan understands that the investigation findings it provided to Renault lawyers more than one month ago have still not been shared directly with the Renault board, Saikawa said in the interview published in French daily Les Echos on Monday.
"All that I ask is that the directors of Renault should have access to the full dossier," Saikawa said. "I think that once that's the case, they will draw the same conclusions as we did."
Ghosn's Nov. 19 arrest and subsequent dismissal by Nissan has deepened tensions with 43.4 percent-owner Renault, which has so far maintained Ghosn in office as its chairman and CEO, citing the presumption of innocence.
MORE ABOUT THE CASE
The wife of former Nissan Chairman Carlos Ghosn has written a letter to Human Rights Watch, a global advocacy group, criticizing her husband’s long detention and Japan’s criminal justice system as unfair and harsh.
“My husband’s is a case study in the realities of this draconian system,” Carole Ghosn wrote in a nine-page letter Monday to the Tokyo branch of the organization.
Carlos Ghosn was arrested Nov. 19 and has been charged with falsifying financial reporting in underreporting his income and with breach of trust in having Nissan Motor Co. shoulder his personal investment losses and make payments to a Saudi businessman.
Ghosn, who led Nissan for two decades and rescued the automaker from near bankruptcy, asserted his innocence in the Tokyo District Court last week. It was his first public appearance since his arrest.
Carole Ghosn’s letter describes how prosecutors interrogate prisoners without a lawyer present in an apparent effort to get a confession — conditions that are routine for suspects in Japan. The system has come under fire from international human rights groups, as her letter notes.
Confined to an unheated cell, her husband has lost almost 3 kg in two weeks, with meals of mainly rice and barley, she wrote. He is denied his medication, given 30 minutes to exercise daily and is allowed to bathe two or three times a week, she said.
Prosecutors often try to extract confessions from prisoners in detention that could last months, Carole Ghosn claimed in the letter.
“For hours each day, the prosecutors interrogate him, browbeat him, lecture him and berate him, outside the presence of his attorneys, in an effort to extract a confession,” she said.
“No human being should be detained under conditions so harsh that their only plausible purpose is to coerce a confession,” said the letter, which cited cases in which people were later found innocent but had been detained for months.
Shin Kukimoto, deputy prosecutor in the Tokyo District Public Prosecutor’s Office, told reporters last week that prosecutors are confident they have a case. Ghosn’s lawyers have complained about the prolonged detention, but their appeals have been rejected. Prosecutors say Ghosn is a flight risk and he may tamper with evidence. No trial date has been set.
Carole Ghosn’s letter defended her husband’s character and his record in the auto industry.
“My husband is well-known as a person of unimpeachable honor, honesty and integrity,” she said in her letter.
Last week, she issued a shorter statement expressing worries about her husband’s health when he had a fever. He has since recovered. Ghosn’s family has not been able to meet with him, and so far only lawyers and embassy officials have been allowed visits.
The government has denied requests to end his detention. His lawyers have said it would likely take more than six months for his case to come to trial.
The Foreign Ministry said Ghosn’s rights are assured under the country’s laws.
“He is treated under the appropriate procedure, assuring fundamental human rights of individuals and undergoing strict judicial examination in (accordance) with relevant domestic laws of Japan,” ministry spokeswoman Natsuko Sakata said in an email.
Ousted Renault-Nissan alliance chairman Carlos Ghosn was paid $8 million (€7 million) through a Dutch joint venture between Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors, the French financial newspaper Les Echos reported on its website.
Les Echos said Sunday that Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors in June 2017 set up joint venture Nissan Mitsubishi BV (NMBV) in the Netherlands to pay bonuses to staff and managers of the two carmakers.
The venture’s top directors were not initially supposed to receive bonuses from the unit, but in February 2018 — and without the knowledge of other directors — Ghosn was hired as an employee by the unit, which made him eligible for payments, the paper reported.
A Nissan spokesman did not immediately respond to a request from comment.
Ghosn has been detained in Japan since his Nov. 19 arrest and faces charges including underreporting of his income for the five years through 2015. He denied those charges at a court appearance last week.
Reuters reported last week that one of Ghosn’s senior executives received an additional six-figure salary via the Dutch joint venture overseeing Renault’s alliance with Nissan. There is nothing to suggest that the payments were illegal, but they highlight governance issues and potential conflicts of interest.
(Published by Channel New Asia and The Japan Times)