YOKOHAMA (dpa-AFX) - The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating Nissan over executive pay. The Japanese automaker said Monday that it received an inquiry from the SEC and is cooperating fully with the agency.
There were reports that the SEC is looking into whether Nissan accurately disclosed its executive pay in the U.S.
This follows the recent indictment in Japan of Nissan and its former chairman Carlos Ghosn on allegations of financial misconduct. Former Nissan director Greg Kelly was also indicted.
Ghosn, who headed the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance, was arrested on November 19, 2018.
Ghosn is charged of understating his compensation by more than $80 million over a period of eight years. He also faces a charge of having allegedly plotted to transfer his personal losses to Nissan's books.
The latest charges were filed on January 11. Ghosn has denied any wrongdoing.
In November, Nissan had said its internal investigation showed that over many years, Ghosn was reporting compensation amounts in the Tokyo Stock Exchange securities report that were less than the actual amount, in order to reduce the disclosed amount of compensation.
Nissan added that numerous other significant acts of misconduct were uncovered, such as personal use of company assets.
As a result, Ghosn was ousted as Chairman of Nissan and Mitsubishi Motors Corp. (MMTOF.PK) and also was temporarily replaced as head of French automaker Renault SA (RNSDY.PK, RNSDF.PK, RNT.L).
Last Friday, Renault said its board of directors decided to provide the company with a new governance structure and to institute a separation of the functions of Chairman of the Board and CEO.
The Board co-opted Jean-Dominique Senard as new Director and also elected him Chairman. It appointed Thierry Bolloré as CEO.
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