Tokyo, 4 February, /AJMEDIA/
The Tokyo High Court on Tuesday upheld a lower court ruling that gave former Nissan Motor Co. executive Greg Kelly a suspended sentence for his role in the underreporting of former CEO Carlos Ghosn’s remuneration, acknowledging only partial guilt.
The appeals court sentenced Kelly, a close aide to Ghosn, to six months in prison, suspended for three years, over the falsification of a financial report for fiscal 2017 but acquitted him of charges related to statements from the previous seven years, affirming the Tokyo District Court’s March 2022 ruling.
Greg Kelly. (Kyodo)
The high-profile case, which began with the arrests of Kelly and Ghosn in November 2018, took a dramatic turn when the former auto tycoon jumped bail and fled Japan to Lebanon.
Prosecutors accused Kelly of conspiring with Ghosn to underreport Ghosn’s remuneration by around 9.1 billion yen ($58 million) over the eight years through March 2018. They argued that Kelly sought to downplay Ghosn’s salary by omitting “unpaid remuneration” from financial statements to avoid public backlash.
The lawsuit centered on the credibility of testimony from Toshiaki Onuma, the 66-year-old former head of Nissan’s secretary office, who was among the executives that reached a plea bargain with prosecutors. Onuma told a high court hearing that he and Kelly had discussed ways to compensate Ghosn.
Presiding Judge Kazunori Karei said that “there is a possibility (Onuma) gave statements that met prosecutors’ intentions,” echoing the lower court’s ruling that the bulk of the testimonies were not credible.
The high court, however, ruled that Kelly had conspired with Ghosn and Onuma to file a financial report that underreported Ghosn’s salaries for fiscal 2017 by around 1.76 billion yen.
Kelly, who did not show up in court on Tuesday, has appealed to the Supreme Court, his lawyer said. He has maintained his complete innocence.
Eiji Ito, deputy chief prosecutor at the Tokyo High Public Prosecutors Office, said in a statement that the office “will closely examine the ruling and deal with it appropriately.”
While the lower court acknowledged the existence of the deferred payments, it labeled Ghosn the “chief culprit in the case” and found insufficient evidence to prove that Kelly was aware of those payments from fiscal 2010 to 2016.
The trial proceeded without Ghosn, 70, who fled Japan for Lebanon in late 2019. The Middle Eastern nation has no extradition treaty with Japan.
Kelly became the only Nissan executive to face trial after Onuma and another former Nissan official struck plea bargains with prosecutors and were not indicted.