Arrested auto executive Carlos Ghosn improperly received 7.8 million euros (US$8.9 million) in compensation from a joint venture between Nissan Motor Co and Mitsubishi Motors Corp, the companies said yesterday.
A joint investigation found that Ghosn, ousted as chairman from both automakers, was compensated by the Netherlands-based joint venture without any discussion with two other board members, Nissan chief executive Hiroto Saikawa and Mitsubishi chief executive Osamu Masuko.
Nissan holds a controlling stake in Mitsubishi Motors.
Ghosn, arrested and detained in Tokyo since Nov. 19, has been indicted in Japan on charges of under-reporting his salary for eight years through March last year and temporarily transferring personal investment losses to Nissan during the global financial crisis.
Ghosn denies the charges against him.
His lawyer, Motonari Otsuru, could not immediately be reached by telephone yesterday.
Reuters reported earlier this week about the alleged improper compensation to Ghosn by the joint venture and that Nissan was considering filing for damages, citing a source.
Nissan yesterday said that it would consider ways to recover the full amount from Ghosn, while Mitsubishi said it would consider ways to hold him responsible.
The latest allegations are likely to add pressure on the Japanese automakers’ partner Renault SA to cut ties with Ghosn.
Unlike Mitsubishi and Nissan, Renault has kept Ghosn as chief executive and chairman, but its biggest shareholder, the French government, has been urging it to replace him.
The French automaker holds about 43 percent of Nissan, the biggest partner in the alliance by sales and which in turn holds a non-voting 15 percent stake in Renault.
Mitsubishi became the smallest member of the three-way alliance when Nissan in 2016 took a 34 percent stake in the company.
DECOUPLING? In a sign of deeper US-China technology decoupling, Apple has held initial talks about using Baidu’s generative AI technology in its iPhones, the Wall Street Journal said China has introduced guidelines to phase out US microprocessors from Intel Corp and Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) from government PCs and servers, the Financial Times reported yesterday. The procurement guidance also seeks to sideline Microsoft Corp’s Windows operating system and foreign-made database software in favor of domestic options, the report said. Chinese officials have begun following the guidelines, which were unveiled in December last year, the report said. They order government agencies above the township level to include criteria requiring “safe and reliable” processors and operating systems when making purchases, the newspaper said. The US has been aiming to boost domestic semiconductor
Nvidia Corp earned its US$2.2 trillion market cap by producing artificial intelligence (AI) chips that have become the lifeblood powering the new era of generative AI developers from start-ups to Microsoft Corp, OpenAI and Google parent Alphabet Inc. Almost as important to its hardware is the company’s nearly 20 years’ worth of computer code, which helps make competition with the company nearly impossible. More than 4 million global developers rely on Nvidia’s CUDA software platform to build AI and other apps. Now a coalition of tech companies that includes Qualcomm Inc, Google and Intel Corp plans to loosen Nvidia’s chokehold by going
ENERGY IMPACT: The electricity rate hike is expected to add about NT$4 billion to TSMC’s electricity bill a year and cut its annual earnings per share by about NT$0.154 Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) has left its long-term gross margin target unchanged despite the government deciding on Friday to raise electricity rates. One of the heaviest power consuming manufacturers in Taiwan, TSMC said it always respects the government’s energy policy and would continue to operate its fabs by making efforts in energy conservation. The chipmaker said it has left a long-term goal of more than 53 percent in gross margin unchanged. The Ministry of Economic Affairs concluded a power rate evaluation meeting on Friday, announcing electricity tariffs would go up by 11 percent on average to about NT$3.4518 per kilowatt-hour (kWh)
OPENING ADDRESS: The CEO is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing and artificial intelligence at the trade show’s opening on June 3, TAITRA said Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD) chairperson and chief executive officer Lisa Su (蘇姿丰) is to deliver the opening keynote speech at Computex Taipei this year, the event’s organizer said in a statement yesterday. Su is to give a speech on the future of high-performance computing (HPC) in the artificial intelligence (AI) era to open Computex, one of the world’s largest computer and technology trade events, at 9:30am on June 3, the Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA) said. Su is to explore how AMD and the company’s strategic technology partners are pushing the limits of AI and HPC, from data centers to