New stage in the Carlos Ghosn case: a civil lawsuit initiated by the car manufacturer Nissan to claim 10 billion yen in damages from its former big boss on the run opened on Friday in Japan.
The first hearing was held at the end of the morning at the Yokohama Court of First Instance (west of Tokyo), where Nissan’s global headquarters are based.
Accused of various financial embezzlements, Mr. Ghosn fled to Lebanon at the end of 2019 to escape the criminal proceedings that awaited him in Japan, and has claimed his innocence from the start.
Last February, Nissan had filed a complaint in Japan against Mr. Ghosn, in order to recover a “significant part” of the damage caused according to the group by its former boss during years of “bad behavior and fraudulent activities”.
This procedure is intended to “make recognize the responsibility of Mr. Ghosn for the harm and the financial losses suffered by the company”, recalled Nissan in a statement published Friday on its site.
The 10 billion yen in damages claimed must compensate for expenses that Nissan says it made because of the “corrupt practices” of its former boss, such as, according to the group, its use of residences abroad without paying rent , his private use of jets at the expense of the company, or even payments to his older sister for fictitious consulting services.
This amount also includes the costs of Nissan’s vast internal investigation against Mr. Ghosn, as well as the group’s legal costs in this case in Japan, the United States and the Netherlands.
In a statement released Friday, Mr. Ghosn said he was “certain” that the “exculpatory evidence” of his defense will prove that Nissan’s accusations against him are “absolutely baseless”.
Since his arrest at the end of 2018 in Japan, Mr. Ghosn has continued to denounce a plot against him, orchestrated by some Nissan executives frightened by a proposed merger with Renault, in “collusion” with the Tokyo prosecutor’s office.
He himself asks for 15 million euros in compensation from Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors for abusive breach of his contract, through proceedings in the Netherlands. He also engaged in a legal battle against Renault to obtain important rights to retirement and performance shares.