Tokyo — Nissan Motor Co was preparing to convene its board on Thursday, November 22, 2018, to push out Chairman Carlos Ghosn after his arrest in Japan sent shockwaves through the company and its long-running alliance with Renault.
The dispute has placed the 19-year partnership under intense strain. The arrangement, expanded in 2016 to bring in Mitsubishi Motors, was already under pressure as Ghosn was accused of financial misconduct and held in detention in Japan.
Ghosn, who was 64 at the time, had been a central figure in shaping the alliance and had backed a deeper integration that could have included a full Renault-Nissan merger. That idea had support from the French government but faced resistance inside Nissan.
According to the report, Japan’s finance minister and France’s finance minister were due to meet in Paris on Thursday to look for ways to steady the alliance. Renault had not moved to remove Ghosn from his role, even though he remained detained alongside Representative Director Greg Kelly, who Nissan also accused of financial misconduct.
A senior Nissan official said the company viewed the alliance itself as the bigger issue. “For me, the future of the alliance is the bigger deal,” the official said on Wednesday. “It’s obvious that in this age, we need to do things together. To part would be impossible.”
The board meeting was expected to begin after 4:00 p.m. local time, or 0700 GMT, at Nissan’s headquarters in Yokohama. The company was also expected to issue a statement afterward, while Renault executives were due to join by video conference.
Nissan said on Monday that an internal investigation, triggered by a tip-off from an informant, had found wrongdoing by Ghosn. The alleged conduct included personal use of company money and under-reporting his earnings for years.
Japanese prosecutors said Ghosn and Kelly conspired to understate Ghosn’s compensation at Nissan over five years from 2010. Prosecutors said the amount was about half the actual 10 billion yen.
Neither Ghosn nor Kelly had commented on the allegations, and Reuters said it had not been able to reach them.
The Asahi Shimbun reported on Thursday, citing unnamed sources, that Ghosn had instructed Kelly by email to make false statements about his remuneration. The paper said prosecutors likely seized the emails and could use them as evidence.
The Yomiuri, Japan’s largest-circulation daily, cited unnamed sources as saying Nissan’s internal probe found that Ghosn had instructed, from 2002, that about $100,000 a year be paid to his elder sister for a non-existent “advisory role”.
Nissan shares were flat ahead of the board meeting, moving in line with the wider market.
Reporting by Maki Shiraki and Chang Ran Kim; Writing by Ritsuko Ando; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman
