The former CEO of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi Alliance, Carlos Ghosn, suffered a legal setback today, as a Dutch court ruled against him in a case he brought against his former employers.
The case is one of many legal battles that Ghosn is involved in and focuses on Dutch-registered Nissan-Mitsubishi BV, reports Reuters. Ghosn was ousted as chairman of the venture in 2019 and claimed that the company violated Dutch labor laws in doing so.
Ghosn was looking for compensation of €15 million ($18.3 million USD) in missed wages and severance payments. The district court in Amsterdam, though, sided with the automakers and ordered that Ghosn pays back €5 million ($6.1 million USD) he had received from the joint venture between April and November 2018.
Read Also: Nissan’s $95 Million Lawsuit Against Carlos Ghosn Kicks Off In Japan
The court found that Ghosn had wrongfully determined his own salary and sign-on bonus at NMBV and that the board member who had signed his employment contract did not have the authority to do so.
The verdict is a particularly resonant one. Ghosn, once a celebrity in the automaking world, was arrested in late 2018 in Japan over allegations of underreporting his salary and using company funds for personal purposes. He fled to Lebanon in 2019 where he remains to this day.
A representative for Ghosn said he would appeal the verdict. Nissan and Mitsubishi, meanwhile, were (unsurprisingly) satisfied with the ruling.
“We are pleased that the court has dismissed Carlos Ghosn’s unfounded claims against NMBV and ordered Mr. Ghosn to repay the significant sums he appropriated unlawfully,” Nissan said in a statement.
