Former Nissan Motor Co chairman Carlos Ghosn yesterday left a Tokyo jail after more than 100 days of detention and one day after a surprise court decision granting him bail of ￥1 billion (US$8.9 million).
Ghosn left the detention center in northern Tokyo flanked by prison guards, wearing a blue cap, a white surgical mask and a work jacket with orange reflective stripes.
His bail was the latest twist in a case that has gripped Japan and the business world since the auto industry titan’s arrest on Nov. 19 last year.
Photo: Reuters / Kyodo News Agency
The 64-year-old faces three charges of financial misconduct over allegations he underreported his compensation and tried to shift losses to Nissan’s books.
He has strongly denied the claims and said in a statement overnight that he was looking forward to his day in court.
“I am innocent and totally committed to vigorously defending myself in a fair trial against these meritless and unsubstantiated accusations,” Ghosn said.
Prosecutors could still seek to rearrest Ghosn if they file new allegations against him, but for now the auto tycoon is out of detention, although still facing strict limits on his movement and communications.
Ghosn had applied for bail twice previously without success, but he shook up his legal team last month, hiring renowned defense attorney Junichiro Hironaka, who quickly filed a new request.
The court had previously justified Ghosn’s ongoing detention by saying that he posed a flight risk and could seek to destroy evidence, so Hironaka’s bail request offered restrictions intended to win the court’s trust.
The bail terms prevent Ghosn from leaving Japan and include other measures restricting his communications.
The measures would restrict Ghosn’s cellphone use and allow him to access a computer only in his lawyer’s office during daytime hours on weekdays, Kyodo News Agency said.
He is also to be banned from contacting Nissan executives and other people with links to the allegations against him, it said.
However, Ghosn could still attend board meetings at Nissan, where he remains a director, if the court gives approval, it added.
Ghosn’s prolonged stay behind bars had come under fire internationally and from rights groups.
Speaking to Agence France-Presse and French daily Les Echos in January — his only interview with foreign media since his incarceration — Ghosn said that his continued detention “would not be normal in any other democracy.”
“Why am I being punished before being found guilty?” Ghosn asked.
Under Japanese law, prosecutors can hold a suspect for up to 22 days while they investigate an allegation, and then can apply for repeated one-month stretches of pretrial detention for each charge eventually leveled.
That means prosecutors could force Ghosen to return to jail if they level new allegations against him, restarting the 22-day detention clock.
In a shakeup of his legal team last month, Ghosn replaced a former prosecutor known as “the Breaker” with Hironaka, who has earned the nickname “the Acquitter” for his court record and “the Razor” for his mental sharpness.
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Hironaka vowed a “completely new legal strategy” to obtain his client’s release.
Experts said that the change of tack appeared to be behind the surprise bail ruling.
“I think the content of the lawyer’s application changed the situation,” Japanese lawyer Nobuo Gohara said.
Nissan declined to comment on the bail decision, saying that it was a matter for courts and prosecutors.
However, it said that an internal probe had “uncovered substantial evidence of blatantly unethical conduct” and that “further discoveries related to Ghosn’s misconduct continue to emerge.”
“The company’s focus is firmly on addressing weaknesses in governance that failed to prevent this misconduct,” it added in a statement.
A towering figure once revered in Japan for turning around Nissan’s fortunes, Ghosn also forged a successful alliance between Nissan, Mitsubishi Motors Corp and France’s Renault SA.
However, his attempts to deepen the alliance caused resentment in some quarters, and Ghosn has claimed that the allegations against him are part of a “plot” by opponents of greater integration between the three firms.
Given the number of people involved in the complex case and their wide geographical spread, Hironaka said that the case would run over a “very long time span.”
However, he said that prosecutors had begun handing over some of their evidence prior to a potential trial.
Shares of contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) came under pressure yesterday after a report that Apple Inc is looking to shift some orders from the Taiwanese company to Intel Corp. TSMC shares fell NT$55, or 2.4 percent, to close at NT$2,235 on the local main board, Taiwan Stock Exchange data showed. Despite the losses, TSMC is expected to continue to benefit from sound fundamentals, as it maintains a lead over its peers in high-end process development, analysts said. “The selling was a knee-jerk reaction to an Intel-Apple report over the weekend,” Mega International Investment Services Corp (兆豐國際投顧) analyst Alex Huang
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) is expected to remain Apple Inc’s primary chip manufacturing partner despite reports that Apple could shift some orders to Intel Corp, industry experts said yesterday. The comments came after The Wall Street Journal reported on Friday that Apple and Intel had reached a preliminary agreement following more than a year of negotiations for Intel to manufacture some chips for Apple devices. Taiwan Institute of Economic Research (台灣經濟研究院) economist Arisa Liu (劉佩真) said TSMC’s advanced packaging technologies, including integrated fan-out and chip-on-wafer-on-substrate, remain critical to the performance of Apple’s A-series and M-series chips. She said Intel and Samsung
POWER BUILDUP: Powered by Nvidia’s B200 Blackwell chips, the data center would support MediaTek’s computing power demand and business growth, the company said Smartphone chip designer MediaTek Inc (聯發科) yesterday launched a new artificial intelligence (AI) data center with a maximum capacity of 45 megawatts to meet its rising demand for computing power required to develop new advanced chips for AI applications. The company has completed the first-phase computing power buildup at the data center in Miaoli County’s Tongluo Township (銅鑼), providing 15 megawatts of capacity to support its research and development (R&D) capabilities, despite an industrywide shortage of key components, MediaTek said. Supply constraints have plagued a wide range of key components, including memory chips, solid-state drives, power supply units and central
TRANSITION: With the closure, the company would reorganize its Taiwanese unit to a sales and service-focused model, Bridgestone said Bridgestone Corp yesterday announced it would cease manufacturing operations at its tire plant in Hsinchu County’s Hukou Township (湖口), affecting more than 500 workers. Bridgestone Taiwan Co (台灣普利司通) said in a statement that the decision was based on the Tokyo-based tire maker’s adjustments to its global operational strategy and long-term market development considerations. The Taiwanese unit would be reorganized as part of the closure, effective yesterday, and all related production activities would be concluded, the statement said. Under the plan, Bridgestone would continue to deepen its presence in the Taiwanese market, while transitioning to a sales and service-focused business model, it added. The Hsinchu
RSS