Nissan Motor Chairman Carlos Ghosn was reportedly under arrest in Tokyo on Monday, as his firm accused him of “significant acts of misconduct” and said it
Japan’s public broadcaster NHK and other media outlets said Mr. Ghosn had been arrested after being questioned by Japanese prosecutors for various improprieties including under reporting his income.
“The Tokyo District Public Prosecutor’s Office arrested Nissan Chairman Mr. Ghosn on suspicion of violation of the Financial Instruments and Exchange Act,” NHK said. In a statement, Nissan said it had been conducting a probe into him for several months after receiving a whistleblower report and had uncovered misconduct going back several years.
The Tokyo prosecutor’s office had no comment on the reports about Mr. Ghosn, who also heads an alliance of Renault, Nissan and Mitsubishi. Nissan said it had launched an investigation into both Mr. Ghosn and Representative Director Greg Kelly several months ago.
The company said it had provided information to Japanese prosecutors and would propose to the board of directors that it “promptly remove Mr. Ghosn from his positions” along with Mr. Kelly. The astonishing news first emerged on Monday evening, when the Asahi Shimbun newspaper reported Mr. Ghosn was being questioned by prosecutors and was likely to face arrest.
Public broadcaster NHK reported that Tokyo prosecutors were raiding Nissan’s headquarters in the city of Yokohama. “If he is arrested, it’s going to rock the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance as he is the keystone of the alliance. He is the man of Charisma for the alliance. It is likely to have a negative impact on its brand image,” said Satoru Takada, an analyst at TIW, a Tokyo-based research and consulting firm.
Nicknamed Le Cost Killer, Mr. Ghosn is known for overhauling Renault and Nissan starting in the nineties. Renault came to the rescue of the then-ailing Japanese automaker in 1999 and parachuted in him, who set about slashing costs and jobs in a huge corporate overhaul. In 2016, he also took charge at troubled Mitsubishi after Nissan threw it a lifeline, buying a one-third stake for about $2.2 billion as it wrestled with a mileage-cheating scandal that hammered sales. Mr. Ghosn has a high profile in Japan and is known as a major advocate of the country’s auto sector. He has not yet commented on the allegations.