A Tokyo court on Thursday handed Nissan Motor executive Greg Kelly a sixth month suspended sentence for helping Carlos Ghosn hide pay from financial regulators, but also blamed a key prosecution witness for his role in the alleged failure to disclose $80 million of income over eight years.
“The court finds the existence of unpaid remuneration” and the failure to disclose “the grand total” amounted to “false” reporting, the chief judge told Kelly in court.
The judge also blamed Toshiaki Ohnuma, an official who oversaw details of Ghosn’s compensation, who avoided charges in return for cooperating with prosecutors.
“Ohnuma’s statement is fraught with danger that he was making statements that conformed to the prosecutors’ wishes,” the judge said. “There was a danger as an accomplice that he would seek to shift responsibility to Ghosn,” he added.
The court also fined Nissan $1.73 million for its failure to disclose Ghosn’s pay. Japan’s No.3 carmaker pleaded guilty at the start of the trial 18 months ago.
The verdict more than three years after Kelly’s arrest alongside Ghosn, may be the closest a Japanese court gets to ruling on the culpability of Nissan’s ex-chief. Ghosn is beyond the reach of Japanese prosecutors after fleeing to Lebanon in 2019 hidden in a box on a private jet.
The charges arose from a financial regulation change in 2010 that required executives earning more than $8.71 million to disclose their pay.
Kelly denied breaking the law and testified that his only intent was to give Ghosn, who was also the chief executive at Renault, a compensation package that would dissuade him from defecting to a rival automaker.
The ruling means that Kelly should be able to leave Japan for the first time since his arrest unless prosecutors, who had asked for a two year prison term, appeal the sentence.
“While this has been a long three years for the Kelly family, this chapter has come to an end. He and Dee (his wife) can begin their next chapter in Tennessee,” US ambassador to Japan, Rahm Emmanuel, said in a statement.
For now the once globe-trotting Ghosn is stuck in Lebanon, unable to travel overseas without risking arrest and a return to Japan.
In addition to the charge of hiding his earnings, Ghosn is also accused of enriching himself at his employer’s expense through $5 million of payments to a Middle East car dealership, and for temporarily transferring personal investment losses to his former employer’s books.
Ghosn has denied all the accusations against him.
