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Facts point to legal violations by Carlos Ghosn, says Nissan external review

YOKOHAMA, Japan — An external committee reviewing governance at Nissan Motor Co said on Wednesday there were enough facts to suspect violations of laws and the private use of company funds by ousted chairman Carlos Ghosn. Following a three-month audit of Nissan's governance after a scandal that shook the global auto industry, the committee put the blame squarely on what it called Ghosn's concentration of power. It also acknowledged Nissan CEO Hiroto Saikawa's role in Ghosn's salary arrangement at the heart of the scandal. Twenty years to the day since French automaker Renault SA agreed to rescue Nissan, the committee described a corporate culture at Nissan "in which no one can make any objections to Mr. Ghosn," who was "in a way deified within Nissan as a savior who had redeemed Nissan from collapse." A representative for Ghosn replied in a statement that the allegations made against the former Nissan chairman "will be revealed for what they are: part of an unsubstantiated smear campaign against Carlos Ghosn to prevent the integration of the Alliance and conceal Nissan's deteriorating performance." The group issued 38 recommendations to bolster Nissan's governance, including that top executive positions at the Japanese car maker should not be held by people serving in executive positions at Renault or junior partner Mitsubishi Motors. It also proposed that the majority of directors, including the chairman of the board, be independent, outside directors and that the role of company chairman be abolished. Responding to the committee's comments, Saikawa told reporters on Thursday that Nissan would seriously consider the committee's recommendations, which he characterized as "tough." Saikawa, who was speaking outside his home, did not specifically address his responsibility in the scandal but has previously said that top management, including himself, were responsible for weak governance which led to the misconduct. The recommendations from the external, seven-member committee came weeks after Nissan and Renault said they would retool their alliance, one of the world's biggest automaking groupings, to break up the all-powerful chairmanship previously held by Ghosn. "There are facts sufficient to suspect violations of laws and regulations, violation of internal rules and private use of company funds and expenses ... by Mr. Ghosn," the committee said in its report.

2014 Nissan GT-R [w/video]

Chasing The Legend
There are only a handful of vehicles in existence that can change you permanently - ones that have the power to rewire your concept of speed to fit their definition. Some five years after the Nissan GT-R legally touched down here in the US for the first time, the coupe is still bending perceptions of what it means to be a supercar in the modern age. For 2014, engineers reworked the GT-R's twin-turbocharged 3.8-liter V6 engine for more power, tweaked the transmission and massaged the suspension for ever more speed. Yes, that's right, I said more speed.
The changes have sharpened one of the best performance buys on the market into a weapons-grade track assault vehicle that just so happens to be street legal. More than ever, this is a car that rankles established supercar players with names like Lamborghini, Ferrari and Porsche, and does so with a Nissan badge on the hood.

Ghosn: Low oil prices won't hurt EVs much

Carlos Ghosn might be the most unflappable automotive CEO around. Despite lower gas prices and signs that these prices do impact green vehicle sales, the CEO of the Renault-Nissan Alliance was at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland this weekend saying that people will continue to buy electric vehicles. "I don't think it is going to be slowing down," he said. "The people who are buying mainly for economic reasons may be deterred from it, but you have plenty of consumers buying EV for other reasons. On top of this, even though the price of oil is unpredictable – nobody has predicted last year that we would be at this level of oil price today and nobody knows where oil price will be next year or two years down the road – but what is predictable is that the regulation on emissions is going to get tougher in the various markets where we are present. So, our EV strategy is here not only to face too much dependence on oil or the cost of oil, but also to allow us to meet the very stringent regulations on emissions that are happening and will be happening in the future. So I can bet you that more and more car makers are coming to EVs and they're going to continue to build and sell EVs, even though the price of oil is coming down." The bit about oil prices and electric vehicles starts at 1:35 into the video. News Source: Nissan via YouTube Green Nissan Renault Emissions Gas Prices Electric Videos oil prices