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Japan prosecutors seek 2 years in prison for ex-Nissan exec Greg Kelly

TOKYO — Japanese prosecutors demanded two years in prison for former Nissan executive Greg Kelly and accused him of joining a “conspiracy” to pay his former boss Carlos Ghosn illicitly in closing arguments Wednesday in a yearlong trial. “That unpaid compensation existed is clear,” prosecutor Yukio Kawasaki told the Tokyo District Court, reading briskly from a thick document. Kelly, a 30-year veteran at the Japanese automaker, was living in the U.S. when he was arrested in November 2018 upon returning to Japan to attend a meeting. The first American to be appointed to NissanÂ’s board, Kelly says he is innocent. He sat calmly in the courtroom, wearing his usual red tie and dark suit, alongside defense lawyers. Everyone in the courthouse was wearing a mask because of the pandemic. Kelly told The Associated Press in an interview last month he did not know all the details of GhosnÂ’s pay. He was determined to retain Ghosn, Nissan's former chairman, because of his extraordinary management skills and wanted to pay him in a legal way, he said. Ghosn was arrested at the same time as Kelly and also maintains he is innocent. He skipped bail in late 2019 and fled to Lebanon, the country of his ancestry. It has no extradition treaty with Japan. The charges center around a pay cut of about 1 billion yen ($10 million) a year that Ghosn voluntarily started taking from 2010, halving his pay after disclosure of high executive pay became mandatory in Japan. Nissan Motor officials considered various ways to make up for the money Ghosn gave up, such as paying him consulting fees after retirement. They also mulled other methods such as payments through subsidiaries and stock options. Nothing had been paid at the time of the arrests. The contention is over whether that money should have been reported as compensation as a de facto promised sum under a binding contract, or didnÂ’t need to be disclosed until it was finalized. Ghosn has said a group at Nissan engineered his arrest because they feared that French automaker Renault, which owns 43% of Nissan, would gain more control over the company. Other Nissan officials made similar comments during KellyÂ’s trial. Renault sent Ghosn to Nissan in 1999 to lead its rescue from the brink of bankruptcy. He successfully steered the maker of the Leaf electric car and Infiniti luxury models for nearly two decades.

Nissan's Carlos Ghosn reportedly arrested, to be fired for financial misconduct

TOKYO — Nissan Motor Co said it was ousting Chairman Carlos Ghosn for alleged financial misconduct and Japanese media reported he been arrested, a shocking fate for a leader hailed for rescuing the company from close to bankruptcy. The Japanese automaker said Ghosn's alleged misconduct included personal use of company money and under-reporting how much he had been paid. Ghosn is also chairman and chief executive of Nissan's French partner Renault and one of the best-known figures in the global car industry, and his departure would raise question about the future of the alliance. Nissan said it launched an months-long investigation after a whistleblower tipped it off to wrongdoing by Ghosn and Representative Director Greg Kelly. "The investigation showed that over many years both Ghosn and Kelly have been reporting compensation amounts in the Tokyo Stock Exchange securities report that were less than the actual amount, in order to reduce the disclosed amount of Carlos Ghosn's compensation," Nissan said in a statement. It said CEO Hiroto Saikawa would propose that the Nissan board remove Ghosn and Kelly. Neither Ghosn nor Kelly could be reached for comment. Renault shares tumbled 11 percent in Paris to be among the worst performing stocks in Europe. Nissan's German-listed securities plunged 10 percent. French President Emmanuel Macron said the government, the French carmaker's top shareholder, will be vigilant about Renault and its alliance with Nissan. Cost cutter Known as "Le Cost Killer," Ghosn is credited for reviving the Japanese automaker and has remained popular despite the massive job cuts that he brought and recent controversy over his lucrative pay package. Japanese media reported that Ghosn had reported around 10 billion yen worth of compensation as around 5 billion yen. Ousting Ghosn, 64, is bound to raise questions about an alliance that he personally shaped and had pledged to consolidate with a deeper tie-up, before eventually stepping back from its operational leadership. "The initial share price reaction shows how pivotal he is," Citi analyst Raghav Gupta-Chaudhary said on Monday. The current alliance structure has long undervalued Nissan shares held indirectly by Renault investors, he added. "Ghosn is viewed as critical for value unlock." Renault owns 43.4 percent of Nissan, while Nissan owns 15 percent of Renault, with no voting rights in a partnership that began in 1999.

As of today, Nissan has sold 50,000 Leafs in the US, 115,000 globally

Watch out, America, there are 50,000 Nissan Leaf electric vehicles prowling your streets. That's the official word from Nissan, which says it has just delivered the 50,000th Leaf – a black SL model – to Todd and Lisa Bolt in Dallas, Texas. Todd is a pastor at the Gateway Church in Southlake, where there almost two dozen Leaf drivers who call themselves the "Blessed LEAFs Club." We're not making that up. Divinely inspired or not, Todd said in a statement that the EV completely meets the family's needs and that, "I don't know why we'd buy another gas car." Last September, Nissan announced it had sold 35,000 Leaf EVs in the US so far, and the 25,000 mark came in May last year. Globally, "nearly 115,000" Leafs have been sold, which makes Nissan's workhorse the most popular EV by a long shot. To celebrate the occasion, Nissan has put together an infographic (click to enlarge) showing the cumulative effects of all those electric vehicles on the roads. While they're only estimates based on taking the actual data from the CarWings connected vehicles (which make up 55 percent of the total fleet) and extrapolating, the numbers are still impressive. Around 906,000,000 miles driven, which means 241,000 metric tons of CO2 saved from going into the air. 50,000 Leaf sales is a big deal, sure, but we're much more keen on those cleaner air figures. Read more below. This content is hosted by a third party. To view it, please update your privacy preferences. Manage Settings. NISSAN DELIVERS 50,000TH ALL-ELECTRIC LEAF IN U.S. TO TEXAS FAMILY DALLAS (May 23, 2014) -- Nissan, the global leader in electric vehicle (EV) sales, achieved another milestone this month as Dallas residents Todd and Lisa Bolt made Nissan LEAF the first all-electric model to hit 50,000 sales in the U.S. The Bolt family took delivery of their black LEAF SL earlier this month at AutoNation Nissan of Lewisville. Thanks to enthusiastic owner advocates, robust public charging infrastructure and the launch of a successful free charging promotion, Dallas – and the state of Texas – have become hot growth markets for LEAF. So far in 2014, LEAF sales in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex have grown by about 50 percent over the previous year, with that growth set to accelerate faster thanks in part to the introduction of a new state tax rebate of up to $2,500 on the purchase or lease of a new Nissan LEAF.