Contradictory version of Carlos Ghosn’s trial in Tokyo court

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After eight months of revelations, this is one of the largest auto leagues in the world. The Tokyo court is examining a key question: Is Carlos Ghosn a leader that Nissan cannot afford or cannot afford to lose?

In fact, the person who was tried in the Tokyo District Court was Greg KellyHe is a gray-haired lawyer from Tennessee. He worked for Nissan for 30 years before being arrested in 2018 on charges of conspiring to conceal Ghosn’s real salary of $87 million.

However, as the trial progressed, prosecutors and defenders paid more and more attention to Ghosn in the law.If he hadn’t, the former Nissan chairman would have been on the dock. go to bedd Tokyo traveled to Lebanon in 2019.

The focus on the absent Ghosn provided the court with two diametrically opposed images of men.

Prosecutors portrayed Ghosn as a frightening dictator through testimony from former executives to relatively low-level employees. According to eyewitnesses, Ghosn’s internal remarks within Nissan are legal, his greed is out of control, and his plan will eventually harm Nissan.

One of them gave testimony behind an opaque screen, telling the court that in her 10 years of working for Ghosn, she changed from thinking that she was surrounded by a “special halo” to thinking that she was motivated by greed. The witness said: “I’m not sure whether infatuation is the right way to express it.”

This version of GhosnAccording to the prosecutor, if he fits the ambitions of maintaining a certain image in France and Japan, he will naturally order Kelly to establish a mechanism to cover up his salary.

At the same time, Kelly’s team appointed Ghosn as an executive, and Nissan absolutely relied on it. As the company fell into crises between crises, including the consequences of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami, and the reason why Renault employees were wrongly fired for suspected company espionage, Ghosn became a growing “retention risk.”

Kelly said in court that Nissan was very worried that Ghosn would join a competitor’s company. If Ghosn did so, he might take away a large number of executives.

Kelly’s testimony challenged Nissan executives’ concerns that Ghosn would force the Japanese company to reach a greater compromise with French partner Renault. Kelly said that the main motivation for keeping him was “to provide services to Nissan and protect Nissan from Renault’s independence.”

Greg Kelly’s legal team says that Nissan’s future depends on retaining Ghosn’s services ©AP

According to Kelly and other former Nissan executives, concerns about Ghosn’s retention have increased after Ghosn’s salary was reduced in response to changes in Japan’s 2010 salary disclosure rules. Ghosn is one of the highest paid executives in Japan, and he is worried that disclosing his full salary will arouse public outcry and dissatisfy Nissan’s employees.

The central question for the judges was whether Ghosn instructed Nissan executives to find a way to pay him, but he just announced a salary reduction or proposed a new compensation plan to him because it was worried about losing the CEO, so he wanted to Pay him his expectations. Another crucial question is whether he will actually provide services for his retirement pay.

Toshiyuki Shiga, the former chief operating officer of Nissan, testified in January that Ghosn asked him to consider ways to receive unpaid compensation after retirement. Even though he knew the “legal risks” of not disclosing it, he still got instructions from his boss.

The change in Japanese rules coincided with pressure from the French government to cut Ghosn’s salary and reduce his influence as Renault’s chief executive officer. Renault is a 15% stake owned by the French government. Kelly told the judge last week that Ghosn is increasingly frustrated with the French government and his salary.

“Sometime in July or September, he thought very seriously about retiring at 60 [March 2014]”, the former head of legal affairs said. “If he retire at the age of 60, he is still a young man, he may be a full-time executive in a car company anywhere in the world. “

Kelly was worried that Ghosn would leave Nissan, so he consulted Hiroto Nishikawa, who was his successor handpicked by Ghosn as CEO. They agreed that Nissan should consider paying for Ghosn after retirement through non-competitive and consulting arrangements.

In February, Saikawa, who stepped down as Nissan’s chief executive officer at the end of 2019, also said that he agreed that Ghosn had become a retention risk, adding that the high demand for “people with such great achievements” is not surprising.

“his [Saikawa’s] It is believed that he was worth $100 million in the past few years. Kelly said. “Many of Nissan’s best ideas come from Mr. Ghosn. If he puts forward two ideas worth 50 million dollars, and I know he will, he will pay for the contract. “

According to an excerpt from Ghosn’s statement to the prosecutor, the former chairman stated that he had never asked for a post-retirement contract, and he believed that the terms were not ideal, so he did not reach a formal agreement with Nissan on his deferred compensation.

The case is still going on.

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