Reports say Japan prosecutors to hold Ghosn for 10 more days
TOKYO (AP) — Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn will be detained for another 10 days following his arrest on suspicion of falsifying income reports by millions of dollars and misusing company assets for personal gain, Japanese media reported Wednesday.
Nissan’s board of directors is due to meet Thursday and decide if it will dismiss Ghosn and the company’s representative director, Greg Kelly. They were arrested Monday on suspicion of collaborating in the wrongdoing.
Their detention was extended Wednesday for another 10 days, Kyodo News service reported. It cited the Tokyo District Court, which must grant approval for such detentions. The court and prosecutors declined to comment.
Under Japanese law, suspects can be held for 20 days per possible charge without an official indictment. Additional charges can be tagged on, resulting in longer detentions. Neither Ghosn nor Kelly has been charged so far.
Ghosn is suspected of under-reporting $44.6 million in income from 2011 to 2015, according to Tokyo prosecutors.
The maximum penalty, upon conviction for violating finance and exchange laws is 10 years in prison, a 10 million yen ($89,000) fine, or both.
Detainees undergoing interrogation in the Tokyo area are generally held in a center that is separate from the prison for those who have been convicted and sentenced. It is supposed to be nicer than a prison but it is austere with limited access to outside visitors.
Prosecutors have not confirmed where he is being held.
Westerners are sometimes given better treatment than Japanese in custody, to account for cultural differences, and so it is unclear what kind of conditions Ghosn might be in.
In 2015, Julie Hamp, a Toyota Motor Corp. public relations executive, an American, was arrested on suspicion of importing oxycodone, a narcotic pain killer, into Japan. The drug is tightly controlled in Japan. Police said the drugs were in a parcel Hamp mailed to herself.
She was released from custody after about three weeks of interrogation without charges and she quickly left Japan.
It is unclear that precedence has any relevance to Ghosn’s situation because the allegations involve so much money, span a significant period of time, and involve the assets of a major company.
Despite the arrests, analysts said the impact on Nissan Motor Co.’s auto sales would likely be minimal.
“I’d be surprised if it impacts car sales very much,” said Christopher Richter, auto analyst for CLSA Securities Japan Co.
“Consumers are discerning enough to say: This car, the wheels might fall off so I’m not going to buy it. This car company, the executive might have done something kind of dodgy, but do I like the car or not.”
Richter noted sales dips that hit after previous Nissan scandals were temporary. The deviations the automaker acknowledged in those scandals were more directly related to product quality, such as mileage, emissions and plant inspections.