Carlos Ghosn, possibly the only former auto tycoon to escape the law by being smuggled out of a country in a musical instrument case, has filed a $1 billion (£783M) lawsuit against Nissan and about a dozen individuals in Beirut over his ‘imprisonment’ in Japan, Lebanese officials said yesterday, according to the Associated Press.
“According to the officials,” the AP says, Ghosn’s lawsuit accuses Nissan and the individuals in Beirut of defamation and of “fabricating charges” against him, which eventually put him behind bars in Japan.
Ghosn, 69, who began his executive career as the head of Michelin’s North American operation, was chairman and CEO of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance, a strategic partnership founded in 1999. He was hired in 1996 by Renault to turn around the money-losing company, and did.
He was doing the same for the alliance through his severe cost-cutting methods that were so successful, if unpopular with some, that he rose to comic-book superhero status in Japan, heading a major turnaround for Nissan.
But subsequent investigation showed evidence of misuse of company funds, leading to his arrest in Japan in November 2018 on charges of “breach of trust, misusing company assets for personal gains and violating securities laws by not fully disclosing his compensation,” AP says.
In December 2019, he jumped bail in Japan and was smuggled out of the country aboard a private jet to Lebanon, where he is a citizen. Lebanon, critically, has no extradition agreement with Japan. Prosecutors in Japan charged three Americans with helping Ghosn escape the country.
Ghosn, sullen and testy on his best of days when dealing with the automotive media, is also facing charges in France of tax evasion and alleged money laundering, fraud, and misuse of company assets while at the helm of the Renault-Nissan alliance.
The lawsuit is set to be heard in September in Lebanon.
