Nissan votes unanimously to fire President Ghosn, ending two decades of rule

YOKOHAMA, Japan / PARIS (Reuters) – The Nissan Motor Co Group (7201.T) The board of directors voted unanimously to oust President Carlos Ghosn on Thursday following the industry's heavyweight shockdown, opening a period of uncertainty as to its alliance of 19 years with Renault (RENA.PA).

The Japanese firm said its board also voted in favor of dismissing Greg Kelly – who, like Ghosn, was arrested after accusations of financial misconduct – from his position as director of representatives.

The decision, which leaves vacant the position of chairman of the board, took place although Renault urged Nissan's board, before its meeting, to delay the withdrawal of Ghosn, sources close to the case told Reuters.

The Franco-Japanese alliance, extended in 2016 to the Japanese Mitsubishi Motors (7211.T), was deeply shaken by the arrest of 64-year-old Ghosn in Japan on Monday.

Ghosn had shaped the alliance and pleaded for a closer merger, possibly including a complete merger of Renault-Nissan at the request of the French government, despite strong reservations expressed by the Japanese firm.

Japanese prosecutors said Ghosn and Kelly had conspired to downplay Nissan's Ghosn compensation over five years from 2010, saying it was about half of the 10 billion yen ($ 88 million).

Shin Kukimoto, deputy attorney general at the Tokyo District Procuratorate, said Thursday that court approval had been received a day earlier to detain Ghosn for 10 days, without being able to state whether he had admitted the charges. .

Nissan executives occupy five seats out of the nine board members, Renault's two loyalists and the other two are held by unaffiliated outside directors, a former bureaucrat and a race driver.

With Ghosn and Kelly still in detention, neither man was able to vote or defend himself at the meeting.

Renault has refrained from sending Ghosn back to the presidency.

But Mitsubishi Motors plans to remove Ghosn from his position as chairman at a board meeting next week.

In the growing uncertainty about the future of the alliance, the Japanese Minister of Industry and the French Minister of Finance will meet Thursday in Paris to seek ways to stabilize it.

"For me, the future of the alliance is the biggest deal," a senior Nissan official told reporters on Wednesday about Ghosn's arrest. "It's obvious that at our age, we have to do things together. To separate would be impossible.

ENVIRONMENT PROHIBITED

Nissan said Monday that an internal investigation triggered by information from an informant had revealed that Mr. Ghosn had committed wrongdoing, including a personal use of the company's money and a sub-claim. declaration of his income for years.

Ghosn and Kelly have not commented on the charges and Reuters has not been able to reach them.

Prosecutors said Ghosn was being held at the Tokyo Detention Center, reputed for his austere diet, very different from his usual luxury lifestyle, including restrictions on sleep during the day and the obligation to wear a mask during the meeting with visitors. spread of the disease.

The detention house "is pretty cold at this time of year", said to Twitter, on the Internet, Takufumi Horie, a fraudster and a recognized fraudster.

Motonari Otsuru, a former prosecutor, known to have overseen the case against Horie, has been hired as a lawyer for Ghosn, NHK said. Otsuru's law firm refused to confirm that he represented Mr. Ghosn and that no one was available to comment.

Asahi Shimbun said Thursday, citing unnamed sources, that Ghosn had given Kelly the email order to give false statements about his pay. Tokyo prosecutors have probably seized the linked e-mails and could use them as evidence, according to the report.

According to anonymous sources, the daily Yomiuri, the largest Japanese daily, reportedly revealed in an internal investigation that Ghosn had ordered since 2002 that $ 100,000 a year be paid to his older sister as compensation for a non-existent advisory role.

The investigation revealed that Nissan discovered during the investigation that Ghosn's sister lived in a luxury apartment in Rio de Janeiro and bought it through a subsidiary abroad, but that she had not done any consulting work for the car manufacturer. Nissan shared information with prosecutors, Yomiuri said.

Nissan shares closed up 0.8%, which corresponds to a broader market, the N225, before the board meeting.