Carlos Ghosn appears in court to challenge his detention

Last month, Carlos Ghosn was re-arrested over charges of breach of trust. Now, Ghosn has appeared in court for the first time since his arrest to challenge his detention.

Ghosn used a Japanese legal option that allows suspects to speak to the court regarding their detention. The hearing was presided by Judge Yuichi Tada, who read out the charges and revealed that Ghosn was in detention as he is a flight risk and due to a possibility of evidence tampering. The ex-Nissan chairman was given 10 minutes to speak and ambassadors of both Lebanon and France were present in attendance. Carlos Ghosn is a citizen of both the countries as well as Brazil.

Ghosn started off by talking about his move to Japan 20 years ago and being paid in Japanese Yen. He had raised concerns over the currency's volatility compared to the US dollar as he was a US dollar-based individual. Due to this, he had entered into foreign exchange contracts since 2002. When Nissan stock price fell from 1500 Yen to 400 Yen during the 2008-09 financial crisis, he was asked to increase the collateral on the contracts. Ghosn had the option to resign and use his retirement allowance to cover the collateral. Instead, Nissan temporarily took over the collateral as Ghosn didn't want to resign.

The former Nissan chairman also revealed that he was offered employment by companies like Ford and General Motors, amongst others, but he didn't take them up. Ghosn also claimed that contrary to the allegations, he never received any undisclosed compensation from Nissan.

Ghosn then spoke about his contribution to the Japanese car maker. He claimed that he rescued Nissan from a debt of 2 trillion Yen in 1999 to cash excess of 1.8 trillion Yen by end of 2006. He also claims to have tripled the company's asset base.

In November 2018, Carlos Ghosn was arrested for under-reporting his income. Subsequently, he was removed as the Chairman of Nissan. It has also been reported that Ghosn has not yet been allowed visits by his family and his lawyers only get limited access.

Source: Auto News