Paris (AFP)

The former Renault boss Carlos Ghosn, who fled Japan where he is being prosecuted for embezzlement, has launched a legal battle against the automaker to claim nearly 800,000 euros in annual pension and 15 million in shares.

Resignation or not resignation? The word weighs heavily in the dispute which now opposes Carlos Ghosn to his former employer. The 65-year-old executive, forced to retire because of his legal setbacks, believes that his rights have been violated by Renault. He initiated the first procedure before the tribunal responsible for social affairs, the labor courts, and is preparing a second before a commercial court.

The case comes against a backdrop of social unrest in France, between the "yellow vests" crisis and pension reform.

The conflict between Mr. Ghosn and Renault concerns the conditions for his departure from the company.

Believing that Carlos Ghosn had resigned from his post on January 23, 2019, while he was in prison in Japan for various alleged embezzlement, Renault announced last year that the Franco-Lebanese-Brazilian businessman had lost his rights to a "retirement-hat" for a gross amount of 774,774 euros per year. To claim this, Mr. Ghosn had to be still present as a corporate officer at the time of asserting his retirement rights.

The board of directors of the diamond group had also estimated that the former CEO had lost his rights to the shares that had been allocated to him between 2015 and 2018 as a reward for the constructor's good performance. Their settlement was in fact subject to a condition of presence in the company four years after their award, "except retirement".

The ex-CEO denies this "interpretation".

"I did not resign at all, I retired from my job as CEO (CEO, Editor's note) to allow Renault to operate, it was in January, I was in prison. I could not leave Renault paralyzed by a situation of this type, "Carlos Ghosn again defended himself in an interview broadcast on France 5 Monday evening. "From there to say that I resigned, frankly it's an interpretation that is specific to those who are saying that."

- "Unscrupulous" -

The former boss, who took refuge in Lebanon to flee a lawsuit according to him unfair, assures that he had left the company to claim his pension rights when he was in fact prevented from leading the group .

In this battle of jurists, "everything will depend on the interpretation of a resignation or not of Carlos Ghosn", confirmed to AFP Charles Pinel, from the consulting firm to investors Proxinvest.

As a former Renault employee, Mr. Ghosn has already applied for interim measures to industrial tribunals in Boulogne-Billancourt, the company's headquarters in the southwest suburbs of Paris, to claim payment of his retirement indemnity. A hearing is scheduled "late February".

In spring 2019, the former boss had taken steps to liquidate his retirement rights. "He has benefited from the payment of this pension since June 1, 2019, both under the basic plan and the Agirc-Arrco plan" of supplementary pensions from the French private sector, explain his supporters. "However, despite (...) his repeated requests to [Renault], his retirement indemnity has still not been paid to him, more than ten months after" his departure.

This litigation before the industrial tribunal relates "only" to an amount of 249,999.99 euros. But a victory on this aspect could help Mr. Ghosn on the more important files of the retirement hat and performance shares. A procedure on these elements is indeed envisaged soon before a commercial court, indicated its entourage.

"I have rights vis-à-vis Nissan, vis-à-vis Renault, which have not been respected, and I intend to claim them in court," warned the former boss last Wednesday during 'a press conference in Beirut.

"At a time when the government insists on wanting to plan the pensions of employees, the ex-CEO Carlos Ghosn remains unscrupulous. He claims the payment of an additional annual pension of almost 800,000 euros, about 637 times the minimum wage! ", indignant the CGT Renault union.

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