Carlos Ghosn Arrested Yet Again

Dec. 22, 2018 12:00 PM ET by Caleb Miller / Comments

Things just keep getting worse for the former Nissan CEO

Times have been tough recently for former Renault-Nissan Alliance executive Carlos Ghosn. He was arrested on November 19 for alleged financial misconduct, with investigations by Nissan revealing that Ghosn and another executive Greg Kelly had been lying about Ghosn's salary to investors and using company money for personal expenses.

He was then charged on December 10th by Japanese authorities for falsifying the amounts that they put in the Tokyo Stock Exchange securities report to represent Ghosn's earnings. They were accused of misrepresenting his salary at Nissan from 2011 to 2015 as half of what it was-4.99 billion yen ($44.3 million) versus the actual 9.86 billion yen ($88.4 million).

Ghosn, who has been held in Japanese prison since the initial arrest, was expecting to be released Friday, after a request by prosecutors to lengthen his time behind bars was rejected by a court. However, the former Nissan head honcho will have to wait even longer after recent developments in his case.

Ghosn was rearrested on new charges on Friday, the day he was due to be let out of prison. This allows prosecutors to retain Ghosn for at least ten more days, and maybe even throughout the longer investigation. The fresh charges state that Ghosn had caused financial damage for Nissan by transferring losses of over $16 million that he had personally incurred onto Nissan's books between 2008 and 2012. It is unclear if Kelly has also been implicated by this most recent report, although both men have denied the charges and Kelly's wife Dee has alleged that her husband was "wrongly accused as part of a power grab" at Nissan.

In the wake of these arrests and investigations, Ghosn was fired from his role as chairman at both Nissan and at Mitsubishi, which was added to the alliance after Nissan bought 34-percent of the company following a 2016 emissions scandal in Japan. Kelly was also fired from Nissan, but Ghosn has managed to cling onto his role as chairman and CEO at Renault. Ghosn had saved Renault in the mid-1990s before purchasing a 36.8-percent stake in Nissan in 1999, beginning the alliance and helping the Japanese automaker back on its feet. While Ghosn's presence at both Renault and Nissan helped rejuvenate the brands, the recent investigations into Ghosn's financial misconduct suggest a less positive place for Ghosn in the brands' histories.

Carlos Ghosn Arrested Yet Again

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