TOKYO (Reuters) – Carlos Ghosn, the former chairman of Nissan Motor Co <7201.T>, shifted personal investment losses incurred during the 2008 financial crisis to the automaker to avoid millions of dollars in losses himself, the Asahi Shimbun reported on Tuesday.
Citing multiple unnamed sources, the paper said that when Ghosn’s bank had called for more collateral from the executive, he instead handed the rights over the derivatives trade to Nissan, which effectively shouldered 1.7 billion yen (11.7 million pounds) in losses.
Japan’s Securities and Exchange Surveillance Commission (SESC) discovered this incident during that year’s routine inspection, the Asahi said.
Nissan said it could not comment on the report. An SESC spokesman said the watchdog could not comment on individual cases.
Ghosn is being held in detention in Tokyo after his arrest last week for financial misconduct, including allegedly understating his income for years. He has denied those allegations, public broadcaster NHK has reported.
Ghosn, who was unanimously voted out as chairman of Nissan last week, was also ousted as chairman of alliance partner Mitsubishi Motors Corp <7211.T> on Monday.
(Reporting by Ritsuko Ando, Kaori Kaneko and Takahiko Wada; Editing by Chang-Ran Kim and Stephen Coates)
