Mitsubishi sacks Ghosn
tokyo — Mitsubishi Motors executives ousted Carlos Ghosn as chairman on Monday following his shock arrest for alleged financial misconduct, capping a stunning fall from grace for the tycoon credited with saving the scandalhit Japanese firm.
The move follows Ghosn’s sacking as chairman of Nissan as he faces questioning in a Tokyo detention centre over claims he under-reported his salary to the tune of $44 million over several years.
The firm’s CEO Osamu Masuko told reporters it was “heartbreaking” to propose ousting Ghosn but in the end, it was a unanimous decision.
The 64-year-old Brazil-born Ghosn rode to Mitsubishi Motors’ rescue in 2016 when the firm was battered by a fuel efficiency cheating scandal, tying it to his NissanRenault alliance and turning its fortunes around. Together, the three-way alliance is the world’s top-selling car group, with some 10.6 million vehicles rolling off the production line. It employs around 450,000 people worldwide.
But the future of the tie-up is now uncertain as the talismanic Ghosn was seen as the glue binding together a fractious FrancoJapanese alliance with headquarters 10,000 kilometres apart. “We [have] had two years of the alliance and there were positive parts... and parts that needed to be revised a little from Mitsubishi Motors’ point of view,” said Masuko.
A seven-person Nissan board decided unanimously on Thursday to jettison the once-revered leader “based on the copious amount and compelling nature of the evidence of misconduct presented”, said a company spokesman.
Meanwhile, further claims continued to leak out in the Japanese media of Ghosn’s alleged misconduct.
Officially, prosecutors are looking into allegations that he conspired with another executive, American Greg Kelly, to understate his income by around five billion yen ($44 million) between June 2011 and June 2015.