Arab News Japan

TOKYO: Daisuke Fujiwara , one of the lawyers of the defense team of former Nissan executive Greg Kelly, has told the media that his client will appeal his conviction and the 6-month suspended prison sentence handed down on Thursday for helping to underreport the salary of Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn.

Kelly steadfastly denied helping to conceal income of around 750 million yen for Ghosn. Kelly was accused of hiding income over several years but was only convicted for the crime in the year 2017. He was arrested in 2018 after being lured back by another Nissan executive Hari Nada, who entered into a plea deal with prosecutors to avoid being charged with other corporate crimes.

Much of the blame for the misreporting of Ghosn’s income was laid at the door of Toshiaki Ohnuma, who also entered into a plea deal with the prosecutors in their bid to convict Ghosn and Kelly. It was Ohnuma who was in charge of overseeing the compensation of Ghosn.

In a letter that one of the lawyers gave to the press, Kelly declared that he had never been involved in an illegal activity and that he does not understand the verdict.

Nissan will have to pay 200 million yen – less than $2 million –to the financial regulator for concealing the income of Ghosn.

Nissan has reportedly spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to convict Ghosn – who escaped to Lebanon while on bail in 2019 – and has seen its value drop by around $30 billion since Ghosn was deposed in the 2018 corporate coup.