Nissan Motor’s board yesterday voted to oust Carlos Ghosn from his post as chairman following his arrest this week, public broadcaster NHK reported.
Ghosn stands accused of under-reporting his income by millions of dollars, along with a host of other financial irregularities.
The 64-year-old Brazil-born tycoon is credited with turning around the Japanese brand and forged an alliance with Renault SA and Mitsubishi Motors Corp that last year sold 10.6 million vehicles between them — more than any other firm in the world.
Photo: AP
Ghosn’s fate appeared all but sealed after his hand-picked replacement as chief executive officer, Hiroto Saikawa, launched an astonishing broadside at his mentor following his arrest on Monday at a Tokyo airport as he landed in a private jet.
Saikawa said “too much authority” had been placed in the chairman’s hands and lamented the “dark side of the Ghosn era” as he called the board meeting to fire him.
The meeting started at about 7pm, with seven board members voting on the motion to dismiss Ghosn, which needed a simple majority to pass.
Insiders said that Saikawa would likely not have suggested the ouster unless he were sure of support from his fellow board members.
“This would not have been proposed if there had been any doubt and the results of the investigations have already been presented to the board members,” a source close to the company told reporters.
Appointing a new chairman will take some time, as it has to be approved by shareholders, but Saikawa is seen as the most likely to take over the position.
Even if removed as chairman, Ghosn will technically remain on the board, as a shareholders’ meeting is required to oust him.
Ghosn was being held in a Tokyo detention center and has not been seen in public nor made any comments since his arrest.
Frenchman Ghosn has received a visit from the French ambassador as part of consular protection.
He also received a visit from Brazilian consul Joao de Mendonca yesterday, who told reporters that Ghosn “sounded very well, in good health.”
On Wednesday, prosecutors successfully applied to extend his custody for an additional 10 days as they step up their questioning.
Authorities say that Ghosn and US executive Greg Kelly “conspired to understate Ghosn’s income five times between June 2011 to June 2015,” reporting a total of ￥5 billion (US$44 million) instead of the actual ￥10 billion.
Deputy chief prosecutor Shin Kukimoto said that the type of crime Ghosn is accused of is “one of the most serious types of crime” under the Japanese Financial Instruments Act.
Under the law, companies themselves can also be held accountable for the falsified documents, Kukimoto said, following reports that prosecutors believe Nissan also has a case to answer.
Kukimoto said Ghosn faces a fine of ￥10 million and/or 10 years behind bars if convicted.
French President Emmanuel Macron said that France would be “extremely vigilant” about the stability of Renault and the alliance with Nissan.
Napoleon Osorio is proud of being the first taxi driver to have accepted payment in bitcoin in the first country in the world to make the cryptocurrency legal tender: El Salvador. He credits Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele’s decision to bank on bitcoin three years ago with changing his life. “Before I was unemployed... And now I have my own business,” said the 39-year-old businessman, who uses an app to charge for rides in bitcoin and now runs his own car rental company. Three years ago the leader of the Central American nation took a huge gamble when he put bitcoin
TECH RACE: The Chinese firm showed off its new Mate XT hours after the latest iPhone launch, but its price tag and limited supply could be drawbacks China’s Huawei Technologies Co (華為) yesterday unveiled the world’s first tri-foldable phone, as it seeks to expand its lead in the world’s biggest smartphone market and steal the spotlight from Apple Inc hours after it debuted a new iPhone. The Chinese tech giant showed off its new Mate XT, which users can fold three ways like an accordion screen door, during a launch ceremony in Shenzhen. The Mate XT comes in red and black and has a 10.2-inch display screen. At 3.6mm thick, it is the world’s slimmest foldable smartphone, Huawei said. The company’s Web site showed that it has garnered more than
Vanguard International Semiconductor Corp (世界先進) and Episil Technologies Inc (漢磊) yesterday announced plans to jointly build an 8-inch fab to produce silicon carbide (SiC) chips through an equity acquisition deal. SiC chips offer higher efficiency and lower energy loss than pure silicon chips, and they are able to operate at higher temperatures. They have become crucial to the development of electric vehicles, artificial intelligence data centers, green energy storage and industrial devices. Vanguard, a contract chipmaker focused on making power management chips and driver ICs for displays, is to acquire a 13 percent stake in Episil for NT$2.48 billion (US$77.1 million).
CROSS-STRAIT TENSIONS: The US company could switch orders from TSMC to alternative suppliers, but that would lower chip quality, CEO Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳), whose products have become the hottest commodity in the technology world, on Wednesday said that the scramble for a limited amount of supply has frustrated some customers and raised tensions. “The demand on it is so great, and everyone wants to be first and everyone wants to be most,” he told the audience at a Goldman Sachs Group Inc technology conference in San Francisco. “We probably have more emotional customers today. Deservedly so. It’s tense. We’re trying to do the best we can.” Huang’s company is experiencing strong demand for its latest generation of chips, called
RSS