The former CEO of Nissan, Carlos Ghosn, is proven guilty of using corporate funds for personal gain. (Image via TechCrunch)

Carlos Ghosn swindled money for personal use: NTA

Reported on Tuesday, Japan’s National Tax Agency (NTA) stated that the former CEO of Nissan, Carlos Ghosn, is proven guilty of using the company’s money for personal gain. The finding did not lead to any criminal case; however, it further strengthened the allegations that the Lebanese businessman swindled corporate funds for his gain.

Without citing the source, NTA revealed that Ghosn had been using the money to pay for fictitious work and donations to a university in Lebanon.

Through 2014, Nissan recorded ¥150 million of expenditure from its secretary office. However, the NTA demanded Nissan to pay the tax also at a certain amount after investigating the expenditure was not corporate but personal.

In November 2018, Carlos Ghosn was arrested due to swindling money for his personal gain. It was found out that Ghosn and his accomplice, Greg Kelly, under-reported compensation amount to the Tokyo Stock Exchange securities report.

Since then, Ghosn has been charged four times for using corporate funds for personal gain. The most recent was in April 2019, when he was detained in Tokyo for authorizing payments for his personal gain from a Nissan distributor in Oman. The method was used on three different occasions from December 2015 to July 2018, causing Nissan to lose around ¥545 million. Ghosn also denied the charge.

Currently, he is awaiting the trial for the case, which he denied. Last Thursday, Ghosn’s attorney demanded Tokyo District Court to dismiss Ghosn’s case, stating that the prosecutors are colluding with the Japanese government and Nissan executive to throw Ghosn out.

At the time of his arrest, Ghosn was working out to bolster cooperation between Nissan and French-flagged automotive company, Renault, an action frowned upon by Nissan’s executive.

Source: https://bit.ly/2PpoXGm