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Carlos Ghosn will report Nissan's ingratitude in book

Carlos Ghosn returns to the attack and promises that, a year after he escaped from house arrest in Japan, where he has been detained since 2018, he will tell his version of the "conspiracy" that put him behind bars. He will do so in a book he is writing and which will be published before the end of this year. There, he says, he will present “evidence” and “testimonies” that several members of Nissan's board of directors have joined together to deal with him, allegedly because they want to avoid the merger between Renault and Nissan at all costs.
In an interview with Al Arabiya, the manager also spoke of loyalty (and the lack of it), of results, in addition to explaining why he fled to Lebanon. Ghosn only put a stop to the conversation when asked to talk about the controversial flight he made, with the argument that this could harm those who helped him.
As you would expect, he was not sweet in his words. According to him, Japan made him not a prisoner, but a hostage whose rights were constantly violated. Ghosn even reveals that he was illegally pursued while walking on the street. And it makes a comparison that is not at all edifying for Japanese justice, remembering that in that Asian country the Attorney General's Office wins 99.4% of the cases, a conviction rate that, he emphasizes, is higher than that recorded by the former USSR during Stalinism.
Ghosn, who in the United States reached an agreement with the Securities Market Commission (SEC) and paid a $ 1 million fine, is targeted on four counts in Japan - two for aggravated abuse of trust and two for financial irregularities. In an interview, he reiterated his innocence, arguing that the charges against him are without foundation. Furthermore, he revealed that the Japanese authorities have not sent procedural documentation for six months.
The manager also shoots towards Nissan, suggesting ingratitude on the part of the Japanese manufacturer when describing, in numbers, the state of the brand before and after its leadership. Ghosn recalls that he became the captain of Nissan in 1999 and that the manufacturer, at the time, was in agony: the debt amounted to 20 billion dollars, annual sales were only 2.5 million units; the damage was increasing. And, he stresses, no Japanese bank was willing to "help" to save the company from bankruptcy. Eighteen years later, under his baton, Nissan more than doubled sales and went from debt to a profit of $ 20 billion. He complains that these results made him an “envied executive” and that, after Nissan's four accusations in Japan, he became an outcast, without receiving any support, except for “2 or 3%” of his network of contacts who remained loyal.
As for Renault, which accuses him of spending 11 million euros on unjustified travel, he is also entitled to a “tug of an ear”. Ghosn returns to the figures to remember that, before him, the French manufacturer lost money in all the markets where he operated, except in Europe. This situation not only changed, but the diamond brand managed to break sales records. And, to pull even more by the gallons, he stresses that Covid-19 cannot be an excuse for the poor results of the three brands of the Alliance, given that the remaining manufacturers - exemplifying with Toyota and General Motors - also had to deal with the impact of the pandemic.
Carlos Ghosn, who has triple nationality (Brazilian, Lebanese and French) also explained that he went to Lebanon because that was where he planned to spend his retirement. Especially because the woman, with dual nationality (Lebanese and American), resides in Beirut and there is no question of extradition. When the explosion occurred in the port of Beirut, the couple was not at home. According to AFP, the building where they live suffered minor damage due to the shock wave.
The book you are writing in self-defense is expected in the coming months, but it is unlikely to close this “novel”. One of the scenes in the next chapters is to know what the Dutch justice will decide, where Ghosn filed a lawsuit against Nissan and Mitsubishi demanding 15 million compensation for unjustified dismissal. As the Lebanese lawyer, Laurens de Graaf, explained, "in the Netherlands, when a company wants to fire an executive, it first has to tell you what it is being accused of and provide evidence." Something that, maintains the jurist, did not happen in the removal of Ghosn.