Carlos Ghosn claims more than a billion dollars from Nissan

Exiled to Lebanon since his spectacular flight from Japan at the end of 2019, under an international arrest warrant issued by French justice last year, Carlos Ghosn counterattacks. The former CEO of Renault and Nissan has decided to sue the Japanese manufacturer in Lebanon. His complaint, filed on May 18, was revealed by Bloomberg. Carlos Ghosn is claiming more than a billion dollars from the company he led for nearly twenty years, estimating its damage at 588 million, in addition to which he is asking for 500 million in damages.

The arguments raised by Carlos Ghosn on this occasion are essentially the same as those he has repeated since his escape and the chaotic press conference he held in Beirut on January 8, 2020. The former industrialist, today hui aged 69, says he is the victim of a defamation campaign and claims that Nissan used the question of his remuneration as an excuse to fabricate the means "found by the conspirators to get rid of him as chairman of the board of administration". The complaint filed by Ghosn develops a long list of grievances: association of criminals in an organized gang, fabrication of evidence, false testimony, invasion of domicile, theft and concealment of documents, defamation, denigration... Among the reasons for this counter-offensive , Ghosn targets the way in which Nissan had recovered, in Lebanon, documents then transmitted to the Japanese justice.

In Japan, Carlos Ghosn was prosecuted for concealing his remuneration – a part which earned his former right-hand man, the American Greg Kelly arrested at the same time as him, to be tried last year and to pay a light sentence. For its part, French justice is trying in particular to clarify the relations of the former CEO with the Omani group SBA, a distributor of Renault and Nissan in the Middle East from which Ghosn admitted during a hearing, according to Liberation, that he had benefited from its founder for a loan he never repaid, and consulting fees he had never made public.

Carlos Ghosn is suing not only Nissan, but also a dozen people who all took part in the internal investigations carried out within the manufacturer and in secret throughout 2018 and which led to his arrest on November 19 of this year. that year. Are concerned the former head of public relations Hitoshi Kawaguchi or directors Masakazu Toyoda and Motoo Nagai. But also the two Nissan executives who reached an agreement with the Japanese justice in exchange for their information: Toshiaki Onuma, the former head of the "CEO Office", and Hari Nada, the lawyer who played a central role in this case and who continues today to occupy a key position with the management of Nissan, in particular in the development of its strategy vis-à-vis Renault. The two groups, as well as Mitsubishi, announced at the beginning of February an overhaul of their Alliance which notably supposes the reduction from 43% to 15% of Renault's participation in the capital of the Japanese group. However, the project has not yet been definitively signed.

The complaint filed by Carlos Ghosn comes as Nissan continues to suffer the repercussions of the shock of his arrest. The manufacturer has announced the departure of its number two Ashwani Gupta and is preparing to partially renew its board of directors, which will be leaving Masakazu Toyoda.