Former Nissan executive Greg Kelly has been given a six-month suspended jail sentence in Japan for helping ex-Nissan President Carlos Ghosn hide remuneration from regulators.
“The court finds the existence of unpaid remuneration” and the failure to disclose amounted to “false” reporting, the chief judge Kenji Shimotsu said, telling Kelly he was responsible for one of the eight years included in the charges.
Reports say that Kelly intends to appeal the conviction and was shocked by the judgment. Kelly said in a statement after the ruling: “The court found me mostly innocent, but I do not understand why it said I was guilty for one of the years.”
The court also fined Nissan 200 million yen.
Kelly maintained that the measures taken in respect of Ghosn’s compensation package were designed to keep him at the company at a time when his value was soaring due to the successful turnaround of Nissan and the construction of an industry leading alliance with Renault.
After charges were levelled at him, Carlos Ghosn became a vocal critic of the Japanese legal system and fled the country, skipping bail conditions, in December 2020. He is now living in Beirut.
In an interview with the Kyodo news agency, Ghosn said the latest ruling was primarily intended to save the faces of prosecutors but also Nissan, which had cooperated in the investigation.