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NEW YORK – The daughters of Carlos Ghosn, a former incarcerated Nissan executive who has overseen an alliance that has sold more than 10 million cars a year, believe the charges of financial misconduct against him are part of A revolt within the company against the possibility of a merger with Renault.
Caroline Ghosn, the eldest of her four sons, said that when she had seen Hiroto Saikawa, Nissan's managing director, condemning her father at a press conference, she suspected that Nissan's investigation was based on opposition to the changes. proposed by Ghosn on the alliance with the French manufacturer.
"What prompted Saikawa to vehemently denounce anyone who has been his mentor and to condemn him without question?" Said Caroline, 31, at the time of writing. a telephone conversation.
She and her 26-year-old sister Maya Ghosn have no direct knowledge of their father's business discussions, but both said that viewing Saikawa's speech in the national media had reinforced belief that the internal dynamics of the company was at stake.
The Nissan CEO told the press that one of the problems of the alliance was that "Renault's command is simultaneously managed by the latter with 43% of the shares". In the future, he said that "the company would seek a more sustainable structure".
"He did not blink, did not even try to conceal the fact that the merger had a connection with that," Caroline said.
Maya, who works in the field of philanthropy, nodded.
"While Saikawa was talking about the alliance, it was clear to me that much more was involved," he said. "My instinctive reaction was that he was superior to the charges against my father."
These interviews are the first time since Ghosn's arrest that California sisters publicly talk about their father, who was fired from his position as Nissan's president after creating an empire that included Nissan, Renault and Mitsubishi.
Ghosn, 64, was arrested on November 19 when he arrived in Tokyo for a meeting of the builder's board of directors. He was later charged with underestimating his salary for five years, in violation of Japanese tax laws.
Internal Investigations
Nissan's internal investigation into what the company calls "substantial and compelling evidence of misconduct" took on a global dimension, encompbading teams that attempted to gather potential evidence about real estate used by Ghosn, including an apartment in Rio de Janeiro.
"Our own investigation is ongoing and its scope continues to increase," the company said in a statement last Friday, suggesting that Ghosn's legal problems could widen. His family claims that he is innocent.
Like Ghosn, Greg Kelly, a member of Nissan's board of directors, has been charged with financial misconduct. Nissan has also been indicted and said it would review its compliance procedures.
Asked about the claims of Ghosn's daughter that the animosity sparked by a possible merger would have led to the Nissan investigation, Nicholas Maxfield, spokesman for the company, said opposed to these words:
"These allegations are unfounded and the family would have had no reason to keep abad of discussions regarding the future of Nissan and the alliance." The cause of this series of events is the fault of Ghosn and Kelly. About this fault, the Japanese authorities opened their own investigation and acted ".
Ghosn remains imprisoned in Japan without the possibility of obtaining bail.
"The first night, I thought my father would come home in less than 24 hours," said Maya. "In the United States, you 're in detention for a short time, at least that' s what I 've seen while watching the" Billions "series, which talks about a troubled billionaire. "
The Ghosn family says that the fall of the entrepreneur in Japan, a nation that welcomes him as a son and savior and where his children spend most of their education, is particularly difficult to understand.
Reference in the sector
In 1999, Ghosn, then vice president of Renault, arrives in Tokyo and applies a restructuring to the US to a Nissan bankruptcy. He got what Wall Street badysts thought was impossible: revive Nissan and make it number two in Japan.
The reversal inscribed Ghosn in business studies as a titan of companies that faces traditional Japanese culture and wins it. He has earned a reputation for defending merit pay. The businessman was permanently unhappy with his multi-million dollar salary, pointing out that he did not agree with the Western leaders of the builder.
Ghosn's children, including 29-year-old Nadine and 24-year-old Anthony, reside in the United States and England, but consider Tokyo their hometown. They described a side of Ghosn that the public did not see: an involved father who was hiding chocolate around the house, helping with homework and running Sunday shopping.
"He set the tone of being fully present and creating almost monastic rituals allowing his children to feel safe and normal," Caroline said. "He was a master in creating this scaffolding to make the turbulence of his life more manageable."
Last month, the scaffold collapsed.
The day after her father's arrest, Maya, visiting Tokyo, crossed the upscale neighborhood of Hiroo, where she grew up, feeling "a profound loss of innocence," she said. she said.
The Ghosn were waiting to see their father free before the holidays. On December 20, a Japanese court made the unusual decision to reject the prosecutor's request to extend Ghosn's detention, and his family was prepared to pay bail. A few hours later, Japanese authorities arrested the businessman for transferring $ 16 million of personal losses during the 2008 financial crisis to Nissan's balance sheet.
"I called Maya crying, we did not say anything in the first three minutes," Caroline said. "The situation as a whole is an absolute blow to the order of a Greek tragedy".
Under Japanese law, Ghosn can be questioned daily by prosecutors and allowed to dialogue with his Japanese lawyer and the representatives of France, Brazil and Lebanon, three countries with citizenship. Your children can not communicate with him.
"We have never spent so much time without listening to my father's voice," Maya said.
Caroline added:
"We just want him to get healthy and have the ability to defend himself, to have access to due process and to be able to use his voice."
Affection for Japan
They are told that Ghosn's cell is not heated and that he repeatedly asks for blankets. They said that he had been denied pen and paper. They said that he also lost weight.
"This is not a terrorist, it is not El Chapo," said Caroline.
Ghosn moved with his family to Brazil, the United States, and France during his years in the auto industry, but Caroline and Maya said they had good memories of Japan. They ate rice at breakfast. a small wedding in the Japanese city of Naoshima.
In the early 2000s, his father was so famous in the country that the Japanese subtly asked him to sign an autograph at the grocery store. Nissan was like a family member, said the sisters.
"It was such an important part of his life, and he cultivated this" child "for 20 years, all of it came from blood, sweat and tears, whereas no one thought he could do it. said Maya.
With the exception of a complete merger, Ghosn hoped to make the union between Nissan and Renault permanent, according to someone close to his discussions. Many Nissan executives, including Saikawa, opposed this decision.
Ghosn's lifestyle reports thwart his daughters, who see them as tools to insinuate Ghosn's transgressions. Its companies in Tokyo, Paris, Rio de Janeiro and Beirut in Lebanon are also under surveillance. They were paid in cash by a Nissan screen company that Ghosn and Kelly created.
The two girls reported being bombarded with media inquiries, including Japanese reporters claiming to be the country's attorney and others waiting in front of their home. Mr. Ghosn's lawyers in the United States have warned his family that it would not be prudent to travel to Japan for fear of being arrested or questioned.
Caroline Ghosn said that since her father's arrest, she could no longer stand to drive her beloved Nissan Leaf, a mint green electric vehicle.
"I will walk in the time my father could not," she said.
With the collaboration of Jack Ewing
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