Former Renault-Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn looks on before addressing a large crowd of journalists on his reasons for dodging trial in Japan, where he is accused of financial misconduct, at the Lebanese Press Syndicate in Beirut on January 8, 2020.
Carlos Ghosn, the former CEO of Nissan, filed a lawsuit against the Japanese carmaker and other individuals linked to his dismissal in 2018 and his subsequent detention for suspected financial wrongdoing. He is demanding more than $1 billion in damages to his finances and reputation, as reported by Bloomberg.
Ghosn's arrest sent shockwaves across the international car sector and triggered instability inside Nissan that has yet to diminish. Nissan's stockholders also took a hit when the automaker blew its early lead in the EV market.
When Nissan was having financial difficulties in 1999, Renault stepped in with a cash infusion, prompting Nissan to hire Ghosn. According to The Guardian, he rose through the ranks to become CEO of both businesses and chairman of the partnership.
Ghosn has been vocal in his criticism of Nissan and the Japanese government for ousting him from the largest automaking alliance in the world.
Both a criminal case in Japan for what prosecutors have called a conspiracy to underreport his pay and a civil lawsuit launched by Nissan in a Yokohama court seeking monetary damages are pending against him.
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Lawsuit Against Former Employer
Ghosn submitted his claims to the public prosecutor in the Court of Cassation in Lebanon, where he has been living since his flight from Japan in late 2019, to avoid prosecution.
The former automaker executive is responsible for forging Nissan's carmaking partnership with Renault SA and Mitsubishi. Bloomberg obtained a copy of the Arabic-translated complaint filed on May 18.
In his case, Ghosn said that the negative effects of the allegations against him, even if they were founded on nothing more than suspicion, would last for the rest of his life because of the gravity and sensitivity of the claims made against him.
The suit seeks fines of $588 million, including actual damages and punitive damages of $500 million.
At least a dozen individuals are named in the complaint as defendants.
Nissan employee Hari Nada is suspected of being a plan instigator in the effort to remove Ghosn from his position. Two top executives, Hidetoshi Imazu and Hitoshi Kawaguchi, had an early role in Nissan's proceedings against Ghosn.
Additionally, Toshiaki Onuma, a manager in the CEO's office, cooperated with Japanese prosecutors in exchange for a reduced sentence for himself and Nada.
Two members of Nissan's board of directors, Masakazu Toyoda and Motoo Nagai, are also on the list.
Ghosn's imprisonment in a Japanese prison for more than 100 days was deemed to be arbitrary and in violation of his human rights by a United Nations panel in 2020. The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention of the United Nations Human Rights Council found that the decision to repeatedly arrest Ghosn in order to prolong his custody was "fundamentally unfair."
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