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Contradictory versions of Carlos Ghosn in the Tokyo court trial

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After revealing one of the world’s largest automotive alliances in eight months, a Tokyo court is examining a key question: Was Carlos Ghosn the leader Nissan couldn’t keep or lose?

He is a man on trial in a Tokyo court Greg Kelly, The hair of a Tennessee lawyer who worked for Nissan for 30 years before his arrest in 2018, is accused of conspiring to hide the real scale of Ghosn’s salary for $ 87 million.

But as the trial progressed, prosecutors and defenses increasingly turned to court in Ghos. The former Nissan chair would have been the same at the dock if it hadn’t been for that sleepd Tokyo to Lebanon in 2019.

This absent attention from Ghosn has presented the court with two images of the human diameter.

Prosecutors, who have gone from former high-ranking officials to relatively low-level employees, have called Ghosn a horror autocrat. According to witnesses, Ghosn’s word was Nissan’s law, his greed was out of control and his plans would harm Nissan.

One of them, testifying behind an opaque screen, told the judge that he had gone from believing he had been surrounded by “special aura” in the 10 years he worked at Ghosn, to thinking he was motivated by greed. “I’m not sure if the obsession is the right statement,” the witness said.

This version Ghosnaccording to the prosecutor, he was the man who would naturally have ordered Kelly to build a mechanism to hide the size of his salary if it suited his intention to maintain a certain image in France and Japan.

Kelly’s team, meanwhile, has introduced Ghosn as an executive who is completely dependent on his future for Nissan. As the company went through a crisis, including the aftermath of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami and the mismanagement of Renault employees, Ghosn became an increasingly “risk of retention”.

Nissan was very worried that Ghosn would join an opposing company, and it would probably lead to a significant number of executives if he did it with him, Kelly told the court.

Kelly’s testimony has been questioned by Nissan executives for fear that it would force Japanese company Ghosn to make ever-increasing commitments to French company Renault. The main reason for joining, Kelly said, was to “offer its services to Nissan and protect Nissan’s independence from Renault.”

Greg Kelly’s legal team says Nissan’s future with maintaining Ghosne’s services © AP

According to Kelly and other Nissan executives, concerns about Ghosn’s retention were heightened after the pay cut came in response to a 2010 change in the rules for disclosing compensation in Japan. Ghosn, one of the highest paid executives in Japan, was feared. knowing his full salary would cause a public backlash and demotivate Nissan employees.

The main question for the judges is whether Ghosne ordered Nissan executives to find ways to pay what he expected but claiming a reduced amount, or whether the company introduced a new remuneration scheme on its own for fear of losing its chief executive. The crucial additional question is whether he would provide compensation services after his retirement.

In January, former Toshiyuki Shiga chief operating officer Nissan testified that Ghosne had told him to think of ways to receive unpaid compensation after retirement. He took over as his manager, even though he was aware of the “legal danger” of not disclosing this.

A change in Japanese rules came under pressure from the French government to reduce Ghosn’s salary and reduce his influence as Renault’s chief executive, which is 15 percent of the French state Ghosn was increasingly frustrated with the French government and its salary, Kelly told judges last week.

“There was a time when in July or September when he was 60 years old he was thinking very seriously about retiring [March 2014]”If he retired at the age of 60, he was still young and could play a full-time job as a senior executive in any car company in the world,” he said.

Worried whether Ghosn would leave Nissan, Kelly said he had consulted with Hiroto Saikawa, Ghosn’s successor as chief executive. They agreed that Nissan should consider paying Ghosn after retirement, through a non-compete and advisory agreement.

Saikawa said in February that when he left Nissan CEO in late 2019, Ghosn had agreed with the opinion that it had become a risk of retention, adding that it was not surprising that “such a highly accomplished person” had high demand.

“His [Saikawa’s] it was believed to be worth $ 100 million over many years, ”Kelly said.“ Many of Nissan’s best ideas came from Mr. Ghosn. If he could come up with two $ 50 million ideas, and I knew he would do it, he would pay for the contract. “

According to excerpts from statements made to prosecutors by Ghosn, the former president said he had never applied for a post-retirement contract and did not consider the terms desirable, so there was no formal agreement with Nissan on delayed compensation.

The case continues.

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