Nissan sacks detained Chairman Ghosn
News & Trends •
amid growing uncertainty over the future of the alliance japans industry minister and frances finance minister are due to meet in paris on thursday to seek ways to stabilize it1 nissan motor cos board voted unanimously to oust chairman carlos ghosn on thursday after the shock arrest of the industry heavyweight ushering in a period of uncertainty for its 19-year alliance with renault1 the moves which leaves the chairman position vacant came despite renault urging nissans board before its meeting to delay removing ghosn sources close to the matter told reuters1 the franco-japanese alliance enlarged in 2016 to include japans mitsubishi motors 7211.t has been rattled to its core by the arrest of the 64-year-old ghosn in japan on monday1 ghosn had shaped the alliance and was pushing for a deeper tie-up including potentially a full renault-nissan merger at the french governments urging despite strong reservations at the japanese firm1 japanese prosecutors said ghosn and kelly conspired to understate ghosns compensation at nissan over five years from 2010 saying it was about half the actual 10 billion yen 88 million1 shin kukimoto deputy public prosecutor at the tokyo district public prosecutors office said on thursday that court approval was received a day earlier to detain ghosn for 10 days but he could not comment on whether he had admitted to the allegations1 nissan executives have five seats on the nine-member board renault loyalists have two seats and the remaining two are held by unaffiliated outside directors a former bureaucrat and a race driver1 with ghosn and kelly still in detention neither of the men were able to vote or defend themselves at the meeting1 renault has refrained from firing ghosn as chairman and ceo1 but mitsubishi motors plans to remove ghosn from his post of chairman at a board meeting next week1 the japanese firm said its board also voted to remove greg kelly who like ghosn has been arrested after allegations of financial misconduct from his post as representative director1 for me the future of the alliance is the bigger deal a senior nissan official told reporters on wednesday when asked about ghosns arrest. its obvious that in this age we need to do things together. to part would be impossible1 nissan said on monday an internal investigation triggered by a tip-off from an informant had revealed that ghosn engaged in wrongdoing including personal use of company money and under-reporting of his earnings for years1 ghosn and kelly have not commented on the accusations and reuters has not been able to reach them1 prosecutors said ghosn is being held at the tokyo detention centre which is known for its austere regime a far cry from his usual luxury lifestyle including restrictions on sleeping during the day and a requirement to wear a mask when meeting with visitors to prevent the spread of disease1 the detention house is pretty cold at this of time year internet entrepreneur and convicted fraudster takufumi horie told his followers on twitter1 motonari otsuru a former public prosecutor who is known for overseeing the case against horie was hired as ghosns lawyer nhk reported. otsurus law office declined to confirm that he represented ghosn and said no one was available for comment1 the asahi shimbun said on thursday quoting unnamed sources that ghosn had given kelly orders by email to make false statements on his remuneration. tokyo prosecutors likely seized the related emails and may use them as evidence the report said1 the yomiuri japans biggest-circulation daily cited unnamed sources as saying nissans internal investigation found that ghosn had since 2002 instructed that about 100000 a year be paid to his elder sister as remuneration for a non-existent advisory role1 the paper said nissan had found through the investigation that ghosns sister had in fact been living in and managing a luxury apartment in rio de janeiro that the company had bought through an overseas subsidiary but had done no advisory work for the car maker. nissan has shared the information with prosecutors yomiuri said1 shares in nissan closed up 0.8 percent in line with a broader market .n225 ahead of the board meeting1