Nissan's disgraced, fugitive former chairman has to give the company $32 million — and a yacht

A fight centered on who owned the 121-foot ship Carlos Ghosn paid for with millions he is accused of illicitly taking from Nissan

By Andy Kalmowitz4 min readUpdated September 26, 2024

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Nissan just won the first round of its boat battle with disgraced former chairman and current indicted fugitive Carlos Ghosn. Basically, this fight was all about who owned the 121-foot pleasure cruiser Ghosn paid for with millions he is accused of illicitly taking from Nissan (NSANY). Ghosn was ordered to give up the vessel to Nissan. On top of that, he, his wife, and a shell company they created to purchase the boat were ordered to pay $32 million in damages, according to the ruling by the British Virgin Islands High Court.

The Custom Line Navetta 37 built by Ferretti, an Italian boat maker, was christened “Shachou,” which is Japanese for “The Boss.” Carlos, that’s a little bit on the nose, isn’t it? It has seven bathrooms, five main cabins and four crew cabins. From Automotive News:

The yacht became a symbol of the alleged self-serving excesses at the crux of misconduct accusations against Ghosn, who was arrested in 2018 at the height of his power as chairman of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance, then the world’s biggest automotive group.

The boat also featured in the final of four criminal indictments brought against Ghosn by Japanese prosecutors. Ghosn has yet to stand trial in Japan on the criminal counts. After 140 days of lockup on two separate stints in a Tokyo jail, Ghosn jumped bail and fled Japan to his ancestral homeland of Lebanon. He continues to live there with an Interpol red notice seeking his arrest.

The British Virgin Islands court contest covered an alleged flow of some $32 million from Nissan’s CEO Reserve Fund through a complex chain of intermediaries, including a regional subsidiary, Nissan Middle East, into various entities controlled by Ghosn or his family members.

Some of the money was traced to Shogun Investments, a California company owned by Ghosn and his son, and to Beauty Yachts Pty Ltd., the company incorporated in the British Virgin Islands to buy the yacht and later owned by Ghosn’s wife, Carole, according to the court’s Aug. 9 decision.

“It is in the Court’s respectful judgment clear as a matter of fact that the sums paid away from Nissan/NME [Nissan Middle East] were for purposes other than the proper purposes of Nissan or NME; and the payments to Mr. Ghosn, Beauty Yachts and Shogun were made in order to benefit Mr. Ghosn or his nominees,” High Court Judge Gerhard Wallbank wrote in the 56-page judgment.

The 70-year-old denied any wrongdoing to AutoNews and said he was “obviously appealing” the decision. Neither he nor his wife attended the trial or were represented there.

Here’s a little more background on this whole boat saga and Ghosn’s legal issues:

Ghosn was arrested in November 2018 in a sting after he landed at Tokyo’s Haneda airport on a regular business trip. He says the charges of financial misconduct were concocted to block Nissan’s fuller integration with its longtime French partner Renault, a plan he was working on at the time.

Nissan applauded the decision as confirming its claims that Ghosn misappropriated funds.

“This is a part of Nissan’s efforts to recover damages suffered due to Carlos Ghosn’s misconduct, including the misappropriation of Nissan’s assets and etc. through legal proceedings including lawsuits in Japan and overseas,” the Japanese carmaker said in a statement.

“Nissan will continue such efforts to make Carlos Ghosn accountable for his misconduct.”The British Virgin Islands case is one of several ongoing civil and criminal showdowns that continue to grab headlines as they grind through courts worldwide, nearly six years after Ghosn’s stunning arrest upended the Franco-Japanese alliance he spent two decades building.[...]French authorities issued an arrest warrant for Ghosn in 2022, alleging he diverted millions of euros from Renault for his personal gain through a scheme with an auto distributor in Oman. That charge mirrors a similar allegation made by Japanese prosecutors regarding Nissan.Ghosn is also fighting a ¥15.5 billion ($102.5 million) civil claim leveled by Nissan in a Yokohama court. And for his own part, Ghosn has filed suit against Nissan in a Lebanon court claiming $1 billion in damages and lost compensation.

Since December of 2019, Ghosn has been living in Lebanon after fleeing Japan in a dramatic dark-of-the-night escape while being hidden in an audio equipment case. Despite the fact he’s wanted in both Japan and France, he holds a Lebanese passport, and that country does not extradite its citizens.

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