Ex-Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn has made his first public appearance since he was arrested in November over allegations of aggravated breach of trust in shifting personal investment losses worth 1.85 billion yen to the carmaker.
The architect of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance declared his innocence, telling a Tokyo court that he was wrongly accused of financial misconduct.
“I have been wrongly accused and unfairly detained based on meritless and unsubstantiated accusations,” said the 64-year-old, who appeared thinner and with sunken cheeks. He was led into the court by two guards, and had handcuffs and a rope around his waist, Reuters reported.
The court hearing, which received top billing on Japanese TV news updates throughout the day, was requested by Ghosn’s lawyers. They wanted reasons for his prolonged detention, and not to argue merits of the case. Judge Yuichi Tada said the detention was due to flight risk and possibility Ghosn could conceal evidence.
According to the newswire, Ghosn’s arrest has also put Japan’s criminal justice system under international scrutiny and sparked criticism for some of its practices, including keeping suspects in detention for long periods and prohibiting defense lawyers from being present during interrogations that can last eight hours a day. Son Anthony Ghosn said his father had lost 10 kgs during his detention. Ghosn is expected to remain in detention through his trial.
Below are the prepared remarks by Ghosn for his court appearance, released by his lawyers in the United States and published by Reuters. It addresses the allegations made towards him and states his commitment for Nissan and his achievement in turning around the once near-bankrupt carmaker.
Statement of Carlos Ghosn
Your Honor,
I am grateful to finally have the opportunity to speak publicly. I look forward to beginning the process of defending myself against the accusations that have been made against me.
First, let me say that I have a genuine love and appreciation for Nissan. I believe strongly that in all of my efforts on behalf of the company, I have acted honorably, legally, and with the knowledge and approval of the appropriate executives inside the company — with the sole purpose of supporting and strengthening Nissan, and helping to restore its place as one of Japan’s finest and most respected companies
Now I would like to address the allegations.
1. The FX Forward contracts
When I first joined Nissan and moved to Japan almost 20 years ago, I wanted to be paid in U.S. dollars, but was told that that was not possible and was given an employment contract that required me to be paid in Japanese yen. I have long been concerned about the volatility of the yen relative to the U.S. dollar. I am a U.S. dollar-based individual – my children live in the U.S. and I have strong ties to Lebanon, whose currency has a fixed exchange rate against the U.S. dollar. I wanted predictability in my income in order to help me take care of my family.
To deal with this issue, I entered into foreign exchange contracts throughout my tenure at Nissan, beginning in 2002. Two such contracts are at issue in this proceeding. One was signed in 2006, when the Nissan stock price was around 1,500 yen and the yen/dollar rate was around 118. The other was signed in 2007, when the Nissan stock price was around 1,400 yen and the yen/dollar exchange rate was around 114.
The 2008–2009 financial crisis caused Nissan’s shares to plummet to 400 yen in October 2008 and to 250 yen in February 2009 (down more than 80% from its peak) and the yen/dollar exchange rate dropped below 80. It was a perfect storm that no one predicted. The entire banking system was frozen, and the bank asked for an immediate increase in my collateral on the contracts, which I could not satisfy on my own.
I was faced with two stark choices:
1. Resign from Nissan, so that I could receive my retirement allowance, which I could then use to provide the necessary collateral. But my moral commitment to Nissan would not allow me to step down during that crucial time; a captain doesn’t jump ship in the middle of a storm.
2. Ask Nissan to temporarily take on the collateral, so long as it came to no cost to the company, while I gathered collateral from my other sources.
I chose option 2. The FX contracts were then transferred back to me without Nissan incurring any loss.
2. Khaled Juffali
Khaled Juffali has been a long-time supporter and partner of Nissan. During a very difficult period, Khaled Juffali Company helped Nissan solicit financing and helped Nissan solve a complicated problem involving a local distributor – indeed, Juffali helped Nissan restructure struggling distributors throughout the Gulf region, enabling Nissan to better compete with rivals like Toyota, which was outperforming Nissan.
Juffali also assisted Nissan in negotiating the development of a manufacturing plant in Saudi Arabia, organizing high-level meetings with Saudi officials.
Khaled Juffali Company was appropriately compensated – an amount disclosed to and approved by the appropriate officers at Nissan – in exchange for these critical services that substantially benefited Nissan.
3. The FIEL Allegations
Four major companies sought to recruit me while I was CEO of Nissan, including Ford (by Bill Ford) and General Motors (by Steve Rattner, the then-Car Czar under President Barack Obama). Even though their proposals were very attractive, I could not in good conscience abandon Nissan while we were in the midst of our turnaround. Nissan is an iconic Japanese company that I care about deeply. Although I chose not to pursue the other opportunities, I did keep a record of the market compensation for my role, which those companies offered me if I had taken these jobs. This was an internal benchmark that I kept for my own future reference – it had no legal effect; it was never shared with the directors; and it never represented any kind of binding commitment.
In fact, the various proposals for non-compete and advisory services post-retirement made by some members of the board did not reflect or reference my internal calculations, underscoring their hypothetical, non-binding nature.
Contrary to the accusations made by the prosecutors, I never received any compensation from Nissan that was not disclosed, nor did I ever enter into any binding contract with Nissan to be paid a fixed amount that was not disclosed.
Moreover, I understood that any draft proposals for post-retirement compensation were reviewed by internal and external lawyers, showing I had no intent to violate the law. For me, the test is the “death test”: if I died today, could my heirs require Nissan to pay anything other than my retirement allowance? The answer is an unequivocal “No.”
4. Contribution to Nissan
I have dedicated two decades of my life to reviving Nissan and building the Alliance. I worked toward these goals day and night, on the earth and in the air, standing shoulder to shoulder with hardworking Nissan employees around the globe, to create value. The fruits of our labors have been extraordinary.
We transformed Nissan, moving it from a position of a debt of 2 trillion yen in 1999 to cash of 1.8 trillion yen at the end of 2006, from 2.5 million cars sold in 1999 at a significant loss to 5.8 million cars sold profitably in 2016. Nissan’s asset base tripled during the period.
We saw the revival of icons like the Fairlady Z and Nissan G-TR; Nissan’s industrial entry into Wuhon, China, St. Petersburg, Russia, Chennai, India, and Resende, Brazil; the pioneering of a mass market for electric cars with the Leaf; the jumpstarting of autonomous cars; the introduction of Mitsubishi Motors to the Alliance; and the Alliance becoming the number one auto group in the world in 2017, producing more than 10 million cars annually. We created, directly and indirectly, countless jobs in Japan and re-established Nissan as a pillar of the Japanese economy.
These accomplishments – secured alongside the peerless team of Nissan employees worldwide – are the greatest joy of my life, next to my family.
5. Conclusion
Your Honor, I am innocent of the accusations made against me. I have always acted with integrity and have never been accused of any wrongdoing in my several-decade professional career. I have been wrongly accused and unfairly detained based on meritless and unsubstantiated accusations.
Thank you, your Honor, for listening to me.
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[i] Innocent [/i] until proven guilty. Nudge nudge, wink wink, eh Carlos?
Same like john, made a mistake but denies any mistake
Where is the resident clown John Minum Teh 8X? Haven’t seen him recently and I missed his fairytales so much. Did he change his name to YB Kunta Kinte?
Yes he did. And you can find many more names that he used below.
No retreat no surrender! Sound vely familiar
Indeed, it sounds very familiar.
He did songlap duit too.
Reminds me of our ex-pm that someone here loves.
In some certain countries, it is trial by media and public opinion, and the suspect presumed guilty until proven innocent.
Renault lords and Frenchie Gov oso cleared him of any wrongdoing. Clearly its a Jepunis lord triggered issue and Jepunis lords hated the fact that foreigner CEO came to save them.
They shud have syukur like basher keep saying about Geely, but his lords instead send him to jail.
Kesian Carlos. Just like a certain exPM too, he came to rescue and bring up to another level but instead got backstabbed and now looking at jail time despite no evidence found.
Spot on! It is truly sad that his Japanese employers now throw him under the bus once his job of rescuing Nissan is done. Much like our ex-PM as well.
After finally managing to pay off the debts incurred by an certain Pirate King, he got thrown under the bus too and the said Pirate King is now back to continue his plunder anew.
This is a car site, we talk about cars. We don’t talk about lords and politics.
Enough of your fake news john. Berambus lah
But it is related. As John had pointed out, Ghosn’s Renault superiors and even Macron have lent their support on the innocence of Ghosn. How is this fake news when a Google search found “Renault keeps Carlos Ghosn at helm despite financial misconduct charges”. It is very clear who is the fake news here and it is definitely not John.
John Minum Teh 8X becomes Hussein, Arshad, Ralesh and Basir. Looks like John Minum Teh 8X is always using other fake user names
Yeah, I can see how open he is using so many fake names.
Another bogus news from our regular troll here. I wish you find a job john. Do go to work like all of us please
He should just go and work at Metrojaya instead of wasting time here.
Cybertrooper dedak era is over
Sorry but I find John has been more trustworthy than a certain resident paid troll with his many fake names and fake news and fake dislikes to other comments.
Thanks for ur sapot bro!
John, go work at Metrojaya lah.
It’s more better than working as a cybertrooper. In fact, now got no more dedak already. Better hurry up and apply for a job
Correct! Better work at Metrojaya, can get high sallary than typing in here like a pendekar keyboard.
@John (not john!)
I agree. Maybe Parkson or iSetan is also a good place for him to work at
Face→mirror
Lolz!
Habisla john! Now in Paultan so many pipu rebadge john name
John seemed to have pulled a raw nerve with that Pakatan cytro. I can see his desperation is crystal clear. Haha! Good job mate! Keep up the good work, and keep the light shining.
john, dude. I can see this PH troll is desperate for you to join him work at Metrojaya. He is lonely. Hahahaha!
So sick and tired with john and his rubbish. Pls permaban him admin
YES! Mods should ban…. you and your fake names!
Paultan should ban all keyboard warriors including john in here. Those keyboard warriors better become a warrior for the country rather than typing rubbish in here.
I don’t think people who support a kleptocratic government should become a warrior for the country.
Later our negara will hancur teruk.
He should go Metrojaya instead.
Later Metrojaya also close shops, those keyboards warrior better become a clown
Pendekar keyboard should go work Kedai Rakyat 1M instead.
Do you have any mental problems? Please keep PT clean. We discuss on car issues as well as bike issues. We have a thriving community here
Can i say the same to you? What is your mental malfunction? 2/3 of what John said is relevant to car issues.
Renault backing him? Is a car issue.
Japan locking him up for his role in Nissan? Car related issue.
Bashers keep whacking Geely? Car related issue.
Ghosn spending time in jail without conviction? Car related issue.
If you have a problem, take it up with the resident troll who keeps whacking Proton and BN in every unrelated article. Our thriving community here hates him for his unwanted trolling.
Agree with you this. Really bored with his copy pasting bashes onto Geely, Proton and previous Gahmen. Even supercar writeup I can see him coming and leaving his excrement.
I agree, but as long time reader and commenter, I can vouch it wasn’t john who started this and certainly what john has written is milder compared to the PH sponsored troller.
It is so evident in these comments alone that many are belongs to that troll and his multiple names. If the mods needed to take any action, it is onto that sponsored troller first.
Thx for all the sapot u guys!
This is a car site. Don’t go off-topic and talk about politics.
By the way, our exPM has been proven to have done a lot of songlap-ing. The US government even confirms this
US Government? When? Please show proof. Talk is easy.
Haha! When people dislike john’s comment, he goes and likes his post 300 times
Lepas tu, ko dgn dislike berkali2 sampai 260 dislike, apesal?
That’s a keyboard warrior job to defend himself from attacks by summoning his henchman name “mouse” to spam the like button
You seem to be very experienced at this art. Oops kantoi!
Are you talking about yourself? Because from that fake name above, it’s quite in the open who you are. And if you want to talk about many likes, Mongol’s comment down here too got just about many likes. Are you then going to accuse Mongol of liking his comment? Such absurdity!
I didn’t dislike his post 260 times. That’s something john would do
So now we know that Japan will lock you up until you confess resulting in 100 percent conviction rate like PRC. No wonder they have low crime rate.
Bolehland..no locking up..u think good meh?look at the bandits on trial ,still laughing their way to bank using yr tax dollars
..
Coming for him in the dead of night is not called locking up? In the past, people would take to the streets when this happened. Such hypocrisy.
Correct! Convicted or not convicted, that person will still be locked up. The only difference is; if still not yet convicted, the authorities will constantly ratchet up the pressure until the person breaks and confesses, often unwillingly and under duress. I am surprised no human rights group made a big fuss about this unlike their very visible protests in other countries (hint Malaysia).
A person is innocent unless proven guilty in court..
You can place 100 charges and “feel” guilty by many in social networking.. But still innocence and on bail..
It is NO doubt a political ploy by rebellious Japanese employees who dislike being ruled by a non Japanese, a European and Whiteman company (read: Renault), to oust the man who has done so much to Nissan. Otherwise, Nissan is just like Sharp, sold and ripped apart by its buyer. That is how Japanese treated its alien.
If Ghosn and Renault had known this would happen, they would have not bothered to rescue Nissan at all. After this, which foreign company would dare do business with Japanese companies anymore?
Hidden due to lowcomment rating. Click here to see.
Top on the list is their ex-Advisor. Oh wait….
You too for spreading fake news
Well everyone already thumbs down to you because everyone knows that you always posting all the fake news on every articles.
He started to sound like najib
And just as innocent. So far no concrete proof to charge both of them.
Somehow, something doesn’t seem right here. This man is already a tycoon and has little need for any extra cash, so falsifying any income statements to make a gain seems silly. My prediction is that if he gets sentenced for whatever crime, it will be for a lesser charge. He does not have extra luggage to support like certain heads of state after all
It’s called GREED. You may think the rich are generous but in reality they’re miser (kedekut) and will do anything to gain that little bit more.
Corporate bigwigs are greedy little monsters, see how they stretch to the limit their entitlement & bend the rules anyway they can. It’s not an offence if you don’t get caught. Ask those that works in big corporations & they’ll tell you the truth about those fat cats on top.