Tokyo prosecutors yesterday indicted former Nissan Motor Co Ltd chairman Carlos Ghosn on two new charges of financial misconduct, his lawyer said, adding to the legal challenges for the once-feted auto executive.
Ghosn was charged with aggravated breach of trust for temporarily transferring personal investment losses to Nissan last year and for understating his compensation for three years, from 2015 to 2017, lawyer Motonari Otsuru said.
Otsuru said his team was applying for bail to release Ghosn, who has been detained since his Nov. 19 arrest.
He had already been charged for under-reporting his income for the five years through 2015.
It is uncommon for defendants in Japan who deny their charges to be granted bail ahead of trial.
Otsuru earlier this week said Ghosn would likely be held until the trial which could begin in about six months.
Even if bail were granted, Ghosn would not likely be released until Tuesday given that Monday is a public holiday and all banks would be closed through the long weekend.
In a court hearing on Tuesday, Ghosn denied the accusations, calling them “meritless” and “unsubstantiated.”
His lawyers, in an opinion submitted to the court, argued that Ghosn’s actions, including using Nissan’s financial standing as collateral to secure currency swaps, were undertaken with the approval of Nissan’s board and officers.
The boards of Nissan and its French 43.4 percent owner, Renault SA, met on Thursday for an update on the Ghosn investigations, with Nissan later saying in a statement it remained committed to the alliance between the two automakers.
At its own informal meeting, Renault said its directors were updated on the company’s compliance investigation into payments to top executives.
Ghosn’s wife, Carole, on Thursday issued a statement on his continued detention, asking Japanese authorities for more information on her husband’s health after he ran a fever, saying she was worried about his recovery.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”