AUTONEWS

Japanese court upholds conviction of Carlos Ghosn's conspirator

The Tokyo High Court has upheld the conviction of Greg Kelly, former Nissan CEO, for conspiring with Carlos Ghosn to conceal future remuneration, maintaining the six-month suspended sentence.

American Greg Kelly(image below to the side), former CEO of Nissan Motor, was convicted again in Japan on Tuesday for collaborating in the financial irregularities committed by former chairman Carlos Ghosn, who has fled Japanese justice.

The Tokyo High Court upheld the decision made in March 2022 by another court in the capital, which was appealed by the defendant, after receiving a six-month suspended prison sentence.

Kelly, once Ghosn's right-hand man, was found guilty of conspiring with the former chairman of the company to fail to declare future remuneration agreed between Nissan and the carmaker's top executive.

The suspended prison sentence meant Kelly did not have to serve any jail time as long as he did not engage in any criminal activity for three years, and effectively allowed him to return to the United States.

Kelly argued in his appeal that he should be acquitted of all charges he was found guilty of. The prosecution had sought up to two years in prison for the American executive, who was arrested in Japan in November 2018, at the same time as Ghosn's arrest.

The American lawyer worked at Nissan as a representative director, one of the most senior positions at the top of the company, and ended up being the only Nissan executive to stand trial after other Japanese officials reached plea deals.

The 2022 sentence, confirmed on Tuesday, was the first in the 2018 case against Ghosn, who shook the auto industry as one of the most respected executives among the world's largest carmakers.

After Ghosn's bizarre escape to Beirut at the end of December 2019, the Japanese courts decided to separate the cases against the Nissan boss and Kelly, since the former chairman of the company could not be tried in absentia.

Ghosn managed to escape from Japan by hiding in a musical instrument box and was transported on a private plane to Lebanon with a stopover in Turkey, despite being prevented from leaving Japan under bail terms.

The former chairman of the Nissan-Renault alliance, who holds triple nationality (French, Brazilian and Lebanese), remains in Lebanon, a country that does not have an extradition treaty with Japan, and claims that he was the victim of a plot orchestrated by the Japanese manufacturer and the Japanese government.

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