Outline · [ Standard ] · Linear+ Carlos Ghosn, arestat luni la Tokyo II, Frauda sau complot?

A 2008 Trip To Israel Is Complicating Carlos Ghosn's Arrival In Lebanon Shortly after fleeing house arrest in Japan where he was awaiting trial for alleged financial crimes to Beirut, Lebanon, former Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn has already attracted new legal attention, this time for a business trip he made to his new neighbor to the south back in 2008. A little more than ten years ago, Renault and Nissan pinned their EV hopes on a battery-swap model pioneered by an Israeli tech entrepreneur named Shai Agassi called Better Place. Better Place was a sort of “mobility company” before the term invaded the start-up world in earnest. The firm wasn’t going to sell cars, it was going to sell access to them on a subscription model they compared to mobile phone operators. It sounds weird now, but back in 2008 people were really excited about this thing. Charging pillars and battery-swap were going up across Israel and the first set of electric Renault Meganes even made it to drivers. Things were so hopeful back then that Ghosn even paid them a visit, meeting with Agassi to sign a purchase agreement for Renault Fluence Z.E. electric cars for use with Better Place’s battery-swap infrastructure as well as to meet then-prime minister Ehud Olmert. Battery-Swapping Israeli Startup Better Place Is Dead Better Place, the Israeli startup company that tried to reintroduce the world to swappable electric Read more Then the company went under in 2013 (the same year Elon Musk showed us a Model S battery swap for the first and last time, funnily enough) and most of us forgot about the company, its partnership with Renault and Nissan, and Ghosn’s trip too. I say most of us because a group of attorneys in Lebanon clearly had it on their mind when they submitted a formal complaint to the Lebanese Public Prosecutor’s office last week against Ghosn for making the visit. According to a report in the Times of Israel, the complaint was submitted to Prosecutor Ghassan Khoury, who called Ghosn in for questioning on the subject of the trip. You see, Lebanon is still technically at war with Israel, which occupied the southern part of the country after a war in 1982 up until 2000, and which fought a war against militant group and political party Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006. Since then, things have been largely quiet along the border, but relations are near-nonexistent and a policy of non-normalization remains in force in Lebanon and the country bars its citizens from engaging in most forms of contact with the country, including visiting for business purposes. According to Reuters, Ghosn apologized for making the trip during remarks he made to the press on Wednesday regarding the plethora of legal issues he currently faces, saying that he did not mean to offend the Lebanese people, explaining that he made the trip as a French citizen at the behest of the board of Renault. The complaint against Ghosn is not the first time a Lebanese national with dual citizenship has been detained and questioned in connection with a visit to Israel. Three years ago, French-Lebanese director Ziad Doueiri faced similar scrutiny for filming a portion of a film in Israel as well. Whether this snag will have lasting effects for Ghosn, who is rumored to be eying a role in policy in Lebanon, remains to be seen. Regardless, it seems as though Ghosn’s arrival in Beirut has been far more complicated than he might have expected.

A 2008 Trip To Israel Is Complicating Carlos Ghosn's Arrival In Lebanon

Shortly after fleeing house arrest in Japan where he was awaiting trial for alleged financial crimes to Beirut, Lebanon, former Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn has already attracted new legal attention, this time for a business trip he made to his new neighbor to the south back in 2008.

A little more than ten years ago, Renault and Nissan pinned their EV hopes on a battery-swap model pioneered by an Israeli tech entrepreneur named Shai Agassi called Better Place.

Better Place was a sort of “mobility company” before the term invaded the start-up world in earnest. The firm wasn’t going to sell cars, it was going to sell access to them on a subscription model they compared to mobile phone operators. It sounds weird now, but back in 2008 people were really excited about this thing. Charging pillars and battery-swap were going up across Israel and the first set of electric Renault Meganes even made it to drivers.

Things were so hopeful back then that Ghosn even paid them a visit, meeting with Agassi to sign a purchase agreement for Renault Fluence Z.E. electric cars for use with Better Place’s battery-swap infrastructure as well as to meet then-prime minister Ehud Olmert.
Battery-Swapping Israeli Startup Better Place Is Dead

Better Place, the Israeli startup company that tried to reintroduce the world to swappable electric
Read more

Then the company went under in 2013 (the same year Elon Musk showed us a Model S battery swap for the first and last time, funnily enough) and most of us forgot about the company, its partnership with Renault and Nissan, and Ghosn’s trip too.

I say most of us because a group of attorneys in Lebanon clearly had it on their mind when they submitted a formal complaint to the Lebanese Public Prosecutor’s office last week against Ghosn for making the visit.

According to a report in the Times of Israel, the complaint was submitted to Prosecutor Ghassan Khoury, who called Ghosn in for questioning on the subject of the trip.

You see, Lebanon is still technically at war with Israel, which occupied the southern part of the country after a war in 1982 up until 2000, and which fought a war against militant group and political party Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006. Since then, things have been largely quiet along the border, but relations are near-nonexistent and a policy of non-normalization remains in force in Lebanon and the country bars its citizens from engaging in most forms of contact with the country, including visiting for business purposes.

According to Reuters, Ghosn apologized for making the trip during remarks he made to the press on Wednesday regarding the plethora of legal issues he currently faces, saying that he did not mean to offend the Lebanese people, explaining that he made the trip as a French citizen at the behest of the board of Renault.

The complaint against Ghosn is not the first time a Lebanese national with dual citizenship has been detained and questioned in connection with a visit to Israel. Three years ago, French-Lebanese director Ziad Doueiri faced similar scrutiny for filming a portion of a film in Israel as well.

Whether this snag will have lasting effects for Ghosn, who is rumored to be eying a role in policy in Lebanon, remains to be seen. Regardless, it seems as though Ghosn’s arrival in Beirut has been far more complicated than he might have expected.

Pe scurt, din lac in puț...

Ce naiv esti.
Daca era un oarecare, de capul lui, era impachetat imediat si trimis colet.

Ghosn o sa-si recupereze pana la ultimul cent de la reno si de la statul francez.
Asa cum vezi, momentan nu scoate o vorba de Renault.

Adica daca nu zici de Renault nimic, se baga supt pres?

13 Jan 2020, 16:24:
The Ghosn Brand Is Broken. These Spin Doctors Say How to Fix It

This post has been edited by IRONICK: 13 Jan 2020, 16:24

omu vroia sa se retraga acu 2 ani, il doare fix undeva ce crede lumea cat ce zice legea si ce bani i se cuvin. Nu vrea sa mai munceasca.

https://www.ft.com/content/170c00f0-323c-11...29-0bcf87a328f2

In a career defined by masterful speeches and self-assurance on stage, no appearance by Carlos Ghosn has been so widely anticipated. The lightning storm raging in Beirut as the former Nissan chairman took to the podium in the Lebanese Press Syndicate offices on Wednesday added to the sense of something momentous.

He had come, just days after spiriting himself from Japan to Lebanon, with a specific set of aims: demonstrating the failures of the Japanese justice system and showing that it had been weaponised by Nissan and the government to bring him down. In the space of more than two hours, he ranged broadly over his experiences at the hands of prosecutors to the uncertain future of the global corporate alliance he once ran. Here is what we did — and did not — learn from the event.

What else did we learn about the escape?
Mr Ghosn remained coy about the details of his dramatic flight from Japan. “I am not here to talk about how I managed to leave,” he said. But he did give a glimmer into his thinking. 


The 65-year-old decided to engineer the escape plot — which involved former special forces and an elaborate transport through a private jet terminal while hiding inside a musical equipment box — after learning his trial could drag on for years. “You’re going to die in Japan or you’re going to have to get out,” he said. Being parted from his wife Carole — they spoke only twice since last April, both times filmed and monitored — was also deeply painful, he said. She was the first person he saw after arriving at his wife’s family home in Beirut last week.

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Carlos Ghosn
Carlos Ghosn accuses Japan of ‘repaying me with evil’
During the escape, which began on Sunday afternoon and saw him land in Lebanon early on Monday morning, he described himself as being “nervous, tense, anxious, hopeful, but frankly . . . numb”.

He described his time in prison in detail, with a “tiny cell with no window”, 30 minutes outside a day, except at weekends because of guard numbers, and almost no access to lawyers or medication. He could only shower twice a week. He said he went six days without human contact during the new year break. When asked if he would recommend a packing case as a means of travel, Mr Ghosn smiled and moved on to the next question.

What new evidence did he show? 
Mr Ghosn spent close to an hour presenting his case, including documents that he said prove the allegations levelled against him are baseless.

He faces four charges — two over allegedly failing to disclose some compensation, and two for allegedly using funds for personal gain. 


Carlos Ghosn explains why he fled Japan

Large images of the documents flashed on screen, with signatures from executives and key passages of text highlighted, but the slides moved too fast to allow proper immediate scrutiny for those in the room or watching the video link. Mr Ghosn said he is “ready to share the documents”, saying they would need to approach his team of Lebanese and international lawyers, though in the hours immediately following the session they have not been disclosed.

He also spent time defending decisions to hold a birthday party at the Palace of Versailles, and using Nissan-owned homes around the world, despite neither relating directly to the charges levied against him by Japanese prosecutors. These, he argued, formed part of a “character assassination” against him by Nissan, the prosecutors and parts of the media.

His defence was nothing if not impassioned — and clearly would form the pillar of his strategy if he does eventually stand trial. But without combing the documents, it was impossible to pass a verdict on his attempts to sweep away the allegations.

Will he stand trial?
The most frequent question was whether Mr Ghosn, who said he wants to clear his name, will see the inside of a courtroom and answer the allegations raised against him. In defiant mood, he said he was prepared to stand trial “anywhere I can be guaranteed a fair trial”. Before the hearing his legal team said he wants a trial in Lebanon, but during the session Mr Ghosn said he was prepared to stand trial in France, Brazil or Lebanon — countries where he is a citizen, and which do not extradite their citizens to Japan. 

The [car] alliance is not going to work with consensus. That I can tell you

Carlos Ghosn
His legal team in Japan could not assure him of a fair trial, and he said that the judge in the case was often ignored by the prosecution team. “I didn’t escape because I was guilty. I escaped because I had zero chance of a fair trial.” He is now prepared to spend significant time in Lebanon, with his travel restricted by an Interpol red notice, as well as an arrest warrant for his wife, Carole.

He painted the presentation as the beginning of his defence — indicating there are more media engagements, possibly with more details and allegations — to follow.

Where does Mr Ghosn think his downfall leaves the Renault-Nissan alliance?
Under Mr Ghosn’s stewardship, Renault, Nissan and eventually Mitsubishi grew closer together and expanded to become, jointly, the world’s second-largest carmaker.

Its future has been in question since his arrest removed the glue that held the often-distrustful businesses together.

The two sides almost came apart last year, Renault’s new chairman Jean-Dominique Senard told the FT, but now the companies have plans to mend their strained relationship, with new leaders and promises to work together in the future.


Carlos Ghosn lashes out at Japan

With Fiat Chrysler, once a merger partner for Renault, tieing up with France’s PSA, the alliance has a fresh impetus to work together in an industry facing squeezed margins and higher costs.

Mr Ghosn on Wednesday said the partnership “can succeed without me,” but warned against running the businesses by consensus, something Mr Senard has proposed.

“What we see today is a masquerade of an alliance,” he said. “The alliance is not going to work with consensus. That I can tell you.”

He said the only three large carmakers over the past year that have fallen in market value were Nissan, Renault and Mitsubishi. Nissan’s shares have fallen about 40 per cent over the past year, while Renault has dropped by a third.

“Look at the results,” he added. “When I look at what happened for the last 13 months, with everything — I’m not reassured about the future of the alliance.”

How will the performance in Beirut play in Japan?
Despite Mr Ghosn’s assertion that Japan had successfully painted him as a “cold, greedy dictator” since his arrest, he remains — as he also claimed during his speech — a figure that many Japanese revere despite everything that has happened. 

His performance at the press conference with its powerful, confident assertions and passionate delivery, provided supporters with exactly the Carlos Ghosn the country remembers from the two decades it lauded him as the saviour of Nissan. 

But in the days since his escape to Lebanon, the mood in Japan has also shifted and for all its verve, this press conference is unlikely to reverse that. While his condemnation of Japan’s justice system was raw and convincing, his earlier claims that he would present hard evidence of collusion between Nissan and the government to bring him down did not immediately emerge. He claimed he would maintain his silence on the names of Japanese government officials out of courtesy for Lebanon’s diplomatic ties with the country, but some inside Japan questioned whether he had any direct evidence of government involvement.

For the Japanese authorities, still smarting at the humiliation of Mr Ghosn’s escape, the press conference was a calculated irritant. Within moments of its finishing, Japan’s Minister of Justice released a statement accusing Mr Ghosn of “propagating false information on Japan’s legal system and its practice”. 

The deputy chief prosecutor, also palpably infuriated, said events had shown it was right to warn that Mr Ghosn was a flight risk, and that the allegations made during the press conference “completely ignore his own conduct”.

Hiroto Saikawa, Mr Ghosn’s handpicked successor who was ousted as CEO in September, rebuffed claims he was involved in a Nissan coup to bring him down. “The real reason he ran away is because he was afraid of being found guilty. I feel strongly that I was betrayed,” Mr Saikawa said. 

IRONICK - stii ca obsesiile se pot vindeca cu ajutor specializat, nu ?

Yamaha warns customers not to climb into musical equipment cases after Carlos Ghosn's escape