Nissan board fires chairman Carlos Ghosn: media

Nissan‘s board has removed Carlos Ghosn as its chairman days after the shock arrest of the industry heavyweight, Japanese broadcaster NHK reported, ushering in a period of uncertainty for its 19-year alliance with Renault.

The Franco-Japanese alliance, enlarged in 2016 to include Japan’s Mitsubishi Motors, has been rattled to its core by Ghosn’s arrest in Japan on Monday, with the 64-year-old group chairman accused of financial misconduct.

Ghosn had shaped the alliance and was pushing for a deeper tie-up, including potentially a full Renault-Nissan merger at the French government’s request, despite strong reservations at the Japanese firm.

Japanese prosecutors said Ghosn and Representative Director Greg Kelly, who has also been arrested, conspired to understate the former’s compensation at Nissan over five years from 2010, saying it was about half the actual 10 billion yen ($88m).

Shin Kukimoto, deputy public prosecutor at the Tokyo District Public Prosecutors Office, said on Thursday that the court approval was received a day earlier to detain Ghosn for 10 days but he could not comment on whether he had admitted to the allegations.

Nissan executives have five seats on the nine-member board, Renault loyalists have two seats and the remaining two are held by unaffiliated outside directors – a former bureaucrat and a race driver.

With Ghosn and Kelly still in the custody, they were not able to vote or defend themselves at the meeting.