A billion dollars in damages. This is the amount that Carlos Ghosn is claiming from Nissan. In May, the businessman filed an appeal with the Court of Cassation in Lebanon against the Japanese group and its employees, a judicial source said on Tuesday (June 20). The ex-boss of the Renault-Nissan alliance believes that they “invented charges against him in Japan, which led to his arrest and the prosecution of him”.
Carlos Ghosn was arrested in November 2018 in Tokyo where he was to be tried for alleged financial embezzlement when he was at the head of the Japanese group. But he had managed to escape in an incredible way and has lived, since the end of 2019, in Beirut.
The man, who has Lebanese, French and Brazilian nationalities, still maintains his innocence and justified his escape by claiming to have wanted to “escape injustice”. He denounces a “plot” hatched, according to him, by Nissan with the support of the Japanese government, to bring it down and thus avoid a closer union with Renault.
Due to Interpol’s red notice (international alert message, editor’s note), the Lebanese justice system banned him from leaving the country. Lebanon does not extradite its nationals.
The date of the hearing has been set for mid-September, according to the judicial source.
Already targeted by an Interpol red notice at the request of Tokyo, Carlos Ghosn has been the subject since April 2022 of a second arrest warrant, this time French, as part of an investigation for abuse of corporate assets, abuse of trust, organized money laundering and passive corruption.
