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The French car group Renault is considering a lawsuit against its former boss Carlos Ghosn after revealing Tuesday night he had committed 11 million euros " suspicious expenses " in a joint subsidiary with Nissan based in the Netherlands.
The French manufacturer thus ends the household in its accounts and definitively closes a chapter which has poisoned during several months its relations with the Japanese ally Nissan, at the origin of the revelations which led to the arrest of Mr Ghosn in Japan on November 19th.
11 million euros of suspicious expenses
The internal audit, conducted jointly for months by Renault and Nissan in their Dutch subsidiary RNBV, has identified 11 million euros of suspicious expenses that engage the responsibility of Carlos Ghosn, deposed boss, indicted in Japan for alleged wrongdoing. The board of directors of Renault, which met Tuesday to study a merger project with Fiat Chrysler , took note in the afternoon of the final conclusions of the audit commissioned Mazars.
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" These findings have confirmed deficiencies in NVG in terms of financial transparency and expenditure control procedures, which had already been identified by the auditors in their interim conclusions in early April, " said the directors in a statement. .
Air travel and donations
The € 11 million includes " additional costs for Mr. Ghosn's travel by air ", which could be personal journeys in a private jet, " certain expenses incurred by Mr. Ghosn " and " donations that benefited organizations non-profit, "they said. " On the basis of these observations, the Board of Directors decided [...] to ask Renault representatives to approach their Nissan counterparts in the governance bodies of RNBV with a view to implementing the actions. available in the Netherlands ".
RNBV, a 50-50 subsidiary between Renault and Nissan, was the structure created by Carlos Ghosn to embody the alliance of the two manufacturers at the operational level. For several months, Nissan accused this structure of masking expenses for the personal benefit of Mr. Ghosn.
The latter is already the subject of four indictments by the Japanese courts : two for concealment of income in stock market documents and two for different cases of aggravated breach of trust, including misappropriation of funds from Nissan. Renault's revelations Tuesday will complicate the defense of the 65-year-old former industry captain who claims his innocence and has repeatedly denounced a plot hatched by Nissan.
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(With AFP)