The fallen Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi CEO Carlos Ghosn has to pay back nearly € 5 million in wages from a Dutch judge to Nissan and Mitsubishi. The court in Amsterdam ruled this in one of the many lawsuits surrounding the ex-top executive suspected of fraud.
Carlos Ghosn himself filed a lawsuit in the Netherlands against Nissan-Mitsubishi, which is formally located here in the Netherlands. He felt the alliance falsely dismissed him as chairman in 2019 and demanded € 15 million in lost wages and severance payments.
The judge did not agree, as there was no employment contract at all between him and the alliance. The necessary permission from the board for this was lacking, according to the judge. Ghosn is now drawing the short straw and has to repay part of the wages that have been received. The amount he has to repay is the net remuneration he received from Nissan-Mitsubishi from April 2018 to November 2018.
The former driver, who also headed Renault and was considered one of the most powerful people in the automotive world, was employed by Nissan from July 1, 2012. This employment contract came to an end on 1 April 2018, the court ruled. Nissan would therefore not owe him any compensation. Wages paid for April 2018 must be repaid by him. Ghosn was further declared inadmissible in his request for compensation, as these requests were submitted outside the applicable deadline.
Ghosn escaped from Japan in 2019, where he is under guard at home pending a lawsuit between him and Nissan. He turned up in Lebanon. Ghosn had been smuggled out of Japan in a suitcase with the help of various international accomplices and brought to Lebanon via various detours. In addition to this Dutch lawsuit, there is also a lawsuit against Ghosn in Japan, for alleged fraud when he was at the helm of Nissan. In November, Ghosn received support from the UN, which stated that the former top executive had been “treated unlawfully” by Japan by being arrested several times.