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Nissan Motor Co. has secretly concealed in a secretary's office the documents showing the agreement between the company and former president Carlos Ghosn about his deferred compensation, sources said.
A senior office official, responsible for managing the remuneration of the board members, reportedly told prosecutors that the documents showed that future compensation had been decided.
The Special Investigations Department of the Tokyo District Attorney's Office reportedly collected the evidence after entering into a plea bargaining agreement with the official directly involved in the creation of the documents, they added.
According to sources, the documents were kept in the secretary's office. The existence of the documents has not been communicated to the financial service or to an audit company.
The plan to pay post-retirement compensation was also not presented at a meeting of the board of directors, the sources said.
Ghosn, 64, was arrested on November 19, suspected of under-reporting his compensation for the five-year period from fiscal year 2010 to 2014 of about 5 billion yen (44 millions of dollars).
During this period, it would have received about 10 billion yen in total, or 2 billion yen a year, as compensation, but reported only 5 billion yen in reports on Nissan securities.
The communication of incorrect information constitutes a violation of the law on financial instruments and the stock exchange.
Former Nissan office manager Greg Kelly, 62, Ghosn's badistant, was also arrested on the same day on suspicion of conspiring with Ghosn for underestimating the president's compensation.
According to sources, Ghosn has reached an agreement with Nissan each fiscal year for the five-year period stipulating that it would receive 1 billion yen annually and that another billion would be deferred until its retirement.
The deal was struck to avoid criticism that its 2 billion yen annual pay package was excessively excessive, the sources said.
The Special Investigations Department has entered into a plea bargaining agreement with the Japanese chief executive of the secretariat, who has been serving Mr. Ghosn for many years, with a senior officer of foreign companies.
In return for obtaining the cooperation of the manager, the department decided to reduce the criminal sentence or to exempt the individual from punishment.
The official presented to the Department of Special Investigations documents on the agreement between Ghosn and Nissan.
In addition, with regard to the interpretation of the documents, the official allegedly stated that one billion yen for the post-retirement payment was part of the annual compensation of 2 billion yen of Ghosn and that the payment of $ 1 billion in the future had already been decided.
According to the contents of the documents and testimonies, the Special Investigations Department apparently concluded that Mr Ghosn had concealed 5 billion yen from his remuneration.
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