Autoline has some insight: Ghosn’s Arrest Is Highly Suspicious

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scottf200;4631581 said:
Autoline has some insight: 5:08 Ghosn’s Arrest Is Highly Suspicious
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7OJQviOEUU&t=308s

Related Bloomberg article:
Title: Nissan’s Drama Looks a Lot Like a Palace Coup
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-11-19/nissan-s-drama-looks-a-lot-like-a-palace-coup
As my colleague Chris Bryant argued earlier, the alliance has become a lopsided beast — essentially a Japanese company with a Dutch head officeand an outsized stake in the hands of the French government. Renault’s 43 percent stake in Nissan typically accounts for the largest share of its equity-accounted earnings. From the perspective of Japan, the French company can resemble a parasite attempting to control its intrinsically stronger host.
 
If Ghosns (and Kellys) compensation was higher than what has been approved by the board (and we are talking about a difference in tens of millions $) he in effect stole the money from the company + almost certainly defrauded government from millions of $ in taxes - in most countries those constitute serious crimes that can result in 10+ years in jail...
 
Moderators: to make it easier to read, can we combine this with the existing Ghosn arrest thread?
 
Honor and saving face is very important in Japan so his arrest was suspect from the get. I first thought it was because he wasn't Japanese but maybe...
 
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/11/21/carlos-ghosn-greed-stupidity-or-a-coup/

This sounds like he did not file correctly what is known in the USA as SEC Form 4, “Statement of changes in beneficial ownership of securities,” from 2010 to 2015.

The company assets in question appear to be residences Nissan acquired for him in Brazil and Lebanon.

Filing these kinds of forms is seldom done by the executive himself. It is delegated to the financial staff and an attorney is appointed to supervise it. And how sleeping in a residence the company has put at your disposal is a misuse of company assets is not really clear to me.

The first misconduct happened over a clearly defined stretch of time. The first question to ask is, what happened in 2010 when it started?

That one is very clear. The law on disclosures to the stock exchange about executive compensation changed. Nissan had two scandals the last year about non-compliance with formal regulations. First, it was safety inspections not being performed by certified persons, and second was not updating emission testing to new regulations for many years.

This sounds more like another failure of the Nissan compliance oversight than an executive enriching himself. There are no accusations of overpaying himself or not paying the taxes due on his remunerations.

Misuse of company assets is more mystifying, especially with the added explanation that Ghosn’s other two jobs (CEO of both Renault and the Renault-Nissan Alliance) made oversight difficult. Was he flying in the Nissan plane to an Alliance meeting or sleeping in a Nissan bed while visiting a Renault plant?
 
While we are waiting for specific charges and details, this article is a pretty good outline:
https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Nissan-s-Ghosn-crisis/Nissan-startup-unit-spent-18m-on-Ghosn-s-homes-in-Rio-and-Beirut

Anybody care to wager that the board was not apprised of nor approve Ghosn's realty spree ?
He even had the gall to direct Nissan to pay a family member $100k USD a year for property advice (or something.)

Note to Carlos: Do not treat the company you work for as your personal piggy bank. It leads to criminal charges of fraud and embezzlement and a long stint in public housing.
 
scottf200 said:
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/11/21/carlos-ghosn-greed-stupidity-or-a-coup/

This sounds like he did not file correctly what is known in the USA as SEC Form 4, “Statement of changes in beneficial ownership of securities,” from 2010 to 2015.

The company assets in question appear to be residences Nissan acquired for him in Brazil and Lebanon.


Regarding "mis-use of Nissan funds," yes, it sounds like he pitched to the board that they should spin-off a startup incubator/investor firm, but then he directed the new firm to purchase houses for his use. However, I haven't read any report that ownership of the properties was transferred to him. So there would be no "change in ownership of beneficial securities." At most, you could fault him for not declaring the value of his use of the properties. Depending on how you look at it, he benefited from their use for several days per year, or they were de-facto leased to him. But he didn't own them. This is clearly shady, but I don't think this is beyond-normal for a Japanese Zaibatsu. In fact, we have state legislators in the US living in houses that were paid-for by utility companies in their home state, with no later findings of any criminal wrongdoing. I am dubious that a typical board chair at a Japanese corporation would be called-out for staying in a "guest house" paid for by the company.

The misreported income and the separate problem of the misuse of corporate funds (the properties) may have been conflated in the CleanTechnica article. MarketWatch describes the "misreported income" as something separate from the properties:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/ghosn-deferred-millions-in-pay-nissan-probe-finds-2018-11-28

It reports that Ghosn, as board chair, could set is own salary, without notifying the board (legally); and that he "wrote IOUs" to himself (unclear what such an "IOU" looks like). The article describes that he awarded himself some "deferred compensation" which quadrupled his salary (but was deferred, not paid). Deferred compensation would have had to have been recorded as a liability on the Nissan books. But for US taxes, it would only be accounted-for when it is paid; not when it is promised. Deferred Compensation is at "substantial risk of forfeiture": if Nissan went bankrupt, the money is gone. If Nissan was acquired (even by Renault!), the money may be gone. I have no idea how the filing to Tokyo Stock Exchange treats deferred compensation, but it's not the same as compensation. Since he never received the money, the case is complicated.

My suspicion is that Nissan's board already got what it wanted (Saikawa-san as board chair). They may want a conviction (for something, anything) to smooth things with Renault, who is still 42% shareholder. If they release Ghosn after 14 days with no charges, the next board meeting is going to get ugly.
 
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