AMSTERDAM -- Carlos Ghosn used a joint venture between Nissan and Mitsubishi to inflate his pay, effectively clawing back a cut to his declared wages, and to cover a personal tax debt, lawyers for the automakers said.
Ghosn, former chairman of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance, was arrested in Japan in 2018 on financial misconduct charges but fled to Lebanon last December.
He has denied any wrong-doing, including concerning the way he was compensated, and has since launched court cases against the companies, arguing he was fired unlawfully. One of the cases is in the Netherlands, where the Japanese companies made new submissions on Monday.
Ghosn granted himself a salary and bonus worth 7.3 million euros ($8 million) in total without the knowledge of the boards of Nissan and Mitsubishi, the lawyers said.
The lawyers alleged in the arguments submitted to the Dutch court that Ghosn had awarded himself that compensation through the Nissan-Mitsubishi joint venture to offset a cut in his publicly-declared earnings, to which he had agreed when stepping down as Nissan CEO in April 2017.
Representatives of Ghosn's legal team said the allegations of unknown or unjust payments were unfounded. They attended the hearing at the Amsterdam District Court, which was linked to Ghosn's unlawful dismissal lawsuit.
"We don't dispute that Mr Ghosn received a good salary", attorney Roeland de Mol said. "But he had the heavy task of getting French and Japanese companies to cooperate. He didn't retire to go play golf after he stepped down as Nissan CEO."
Nissan-Mitsubishi lawyer Eelco Meerdink said there was also evidence that Ghosn made the alliance pay a personal French tax debt of 498,000 euros in 2018, and that he had arranged a "pre-payment" of his 2019 salary in 2018 to avoid a scheduled increase in Dutch income tax rates.
