Former Nissan exec faces French arrest warrant

PARIS — French prosecutors said Friday that they issued an international arrest warrant for Carlos Ghosn, the former auto executive who jumped bail in Japan in 2019 and escaped to Lebanon.

Authorities said the warrant for Ghosn — architect of the alliance between Nissan and French automaker Renault — as well as four other people followed a “judicial investigation opened on February 12, 2020,” by the prosecutor’s office in Nanterre, near the French capital.

But the warrant is not expected to significantly change the likelihood of Ghosn facing trial outside Lebanon. Ghosn holds French, Brazilian and Lebanese citizenship, and Lebanon does not extradite its citizens to other countries. Ghosn is also banned from leaving Lebanon.

The Wall Street Journal first reported on the warrants on Friday.

In a statement, French authorities confirmed that the warrants, issued Thursday, also target “current owners or former managers of the Omani company SBA, a vehicle distributor in Oman.”

The French case has revolved around whether Ghosn was involved in illegal financial activities with SBA, a Renault-Nissan distributor in Oman. Investigators had examined whether Ghosn diverted funds for personal use.

French prosecutors have also investigated lavish festivities that Ghosn held at the famous Versailles palace near Paris that may have crossed the line between corporate and private use.

It remained unclear on Friday which charges Ghosn could face in France. After he was questioned by French investigators last year, one of his lawyers said the proceedings were the first fair treatment of Ghosn since his detention in 2018 by Japanese authorities, who accused him of financial misconduct while chairman of Nissan.

Ghosn, 68, was indicted on charges including underreporting the true extent of his compensation at the auto company. He has denied all charges.

Ghosn fled Japan for Lebanon in 2019, proclaiming his innocence and complaining about what he called a conspiracy to bring him down. Ghosn said a “systematic campaign by a handful of malevolent actors to destroy my reputation and impugn my character” had developed within Japan over his plans to deepen the alliance between Nissan and Renault.

He also denounced his detention under a “corrupt and hostile system that presumed my guilt from Day One.” Japanese Justice Minister Masako Mori said at the time that Ghosn was propagating false information about Japan’s justice system and warned that his decision to run from a criminal trial could be a crime itself.

Two Americans who helped Ghosn flee Japan were sentenced to prison in Tokyo last year. Michael Taylor, 60, and son Peter Taylor, 28, pleaded guilty to orchestrating his surprise escape. They were arrested by U.S. authorities in Massachusetts in spring 2020 and extradited to Japan in 2021.

The pair admitted to helping hide Ghosn in a box designed for large audio equipment and then shipping him as freight on a private jet headed for Lebanon. Michael Taylor received a two-year sentence, and Peter Taylor received one year and eight months.

Another American, former Nissan executive Greg Kelly, was arrested at the same time as Ghosn in Japan and spent three years in jail there, much of it awaiting trial over allegations of false reporting of Ghosn’s remuneration package. Kelly, in charge of human resources at Nissan, was found guilty in March of essentially helping Ghosn to hide pay from regulators, and he received a six-month suspended sentence.