Ghosn's family suspects Nissan revolt behind his arrest, misconduct charges

Caroline Ghosn suspected that Nissan's investigation was rooted in opposition to proposed changes to the Nissan-Renault alliance and "the merger my dad was setting up

The children of Carlos Ghosn, the jailed auto executive who oversaw an alliance that sold more than 10 million cars a year, believe accusations of financial misconduct against him are part of a revolt within Nissan against exploring a possible merger with Renault.
 
Caroline Ghosn, the eldest of Ghosn’s four children, said that when she saw Hiroto Saikawa, the chief executive of Nissan, condemn her father during a televised news conference after his arrest, she suspected that Nissan’s investigation was rooted in opposition to proposed changes to the Nissan-Renault alliance and “the merger my dad was setting up”.
 
“For Saikawa to so adamantly denounce someone who had been his mentor and then immediately without any benefit of the doubt condemns him?” Ghosn, 31, said in a phone interview. An entrepreneur, she had awakened hours before that briefing to the news that her father, who was Nissan’s chairman and Renault’s
 
She and her sister Maya Ghosn, 26, do not have direct knowledge of their father’s business discussions, but both said watching Saikawa address the national news media had cemented their belief that internal company dynamics were at play.

 
Saikawa told the reporters that one problem with the alliance was that “the top of Renault is concurrently serving as the top of Nissan with 43 per cent of shares”. In the future, he said, the company would “look for a more sustainable structure”.
 
“Wow,” Caroline Ghosn said. “He didn’t even waste a breath. He didn’t even try to cover up the fact that the merger had something to do with this.”
 
Maya Ghosn, who works in philanthropy, agreed. As Saikawa was “talking about the alliance, it was clear to me that there was way more associated with it,” she said. “My gut reaction was that this was bigger than the accusations against my dad.”
 
The interviews were the first time since the arrest that the sisters, now living in San Francisco, have spoken publicly about their father, who was deposed as chairman of the board of Nissan after creating an empire that included Nissan, Renault and Mitsubishi.
 
Ghosn, 64, was arrested on November 19 as he arrived in Tokyo for a board meeting. He was later charged with underreporting his compensation for several years in securities filings and has been detained in Tokyo.
 
Nissan’s internal investigation of what it calls “substantial and convincing evidence of misconduct” has taken on global dimensions, encompassing teams of compliance people who have tried to secure potential evidence at residences used by Ghosn, including an apartment in Rio de Janeiro.

 
“Our own investigation is ongoing, and its scope continues to broaden,” the company said in a statement on Friday, suggesting that Ghosn’s legal problems could deepen. His family maintains he is innocent.
 
Like Ghosn, Greg Kelly, a Nissan board member, was indicted on financial misconduct changes. Nissan was indicted, too, and said it would review its compliance procedures.
 
Asked to respond to the Ghosn daughters’ claims — that animosity about a potential merger drove Nissan’s investigation — Nicholas Maxfield, a company spokesman, said: “These claims are baseless. The family would never have had any reason to be privy to discussions related to the future of Nissan and the alliance.”
“The cause of this chain of events is the misconduct led by Ghosn and Kelly,” Maxfield said. “During the company’s internal investigation into this misconduct, the prosecutor’s office began its own investigation and took action.” (Asked specifically whether a merger had been discussed, Maxfield said a previously announced six-year plan had called for “additional synergies and further convergence among the member companies”.)
 
Ghosn has remained in a small jail cell without the opportunity for bail since his arrest.

©2018 The New York Times News Service