In April, an investigating judge in a Paris court issued an international arrest warrant for Carlos Ghosn, the former CEO of Renault-Nissan who lives in Lebanon, as part of an investigation into contracts awarded by the group’s subsidiary. to the file, AFP reported on Tuesday.

The suspended car magnate is already the subject of an international arrest warrant issued by an investigating judge in Nanterre in April 2022 as part of an investigation into the misuse of corporate assets and organized money laundering linked to Oman’s Suhail Bahwan Automobiles (SBA).

“Carlos Ghosn cannot leave Lebanon because the Lebanese authorities have banned him from leaving the country through the Japanese procedure. Therefore, he cannot respond to subpoenas for indictment in France,” Léon Del Forno and Martin Reynaud, the former CEO’s lawyers, told AFP.

In their opinion, “this arrest warrant is nothing more and nothing less than an attempt by the magistrates to continue their investigation in the absence of the possibility of indicting Carlos Ghosn.”

An investigating judge in Paris issued an arrest warrant in April after Carlos Ghosn failed to appear at a May 19, 2022 summons to appear on corruption and other charges.

This international arrest warrant may be the last act of a judicial investigation opened on July 10, 2019, into corruption, bribery of an official of an international public organization, influence peddling, misappropriation of corporate assets and handling of stolen property.

Once the investigation is complete, the National Financial Prosecution Service will make recommendations, after which the investigating judge will decide whether or not to order a trial. Because an arrest warrant is equivalent to an indictment, Carlos Ghosn can face criminal charges.

The suspicions in this case relate to a sum of 900,000 euros paid to Rashida Dati by RNBV, the Dutch subsidiary of the Renault-Nissan alliance, during the period when Carlos Ghosn was its CEO.

Dati received these fees as a lawyer in 2010-2012, when he was also a member of the European Parliament. Since July 2021, she has been under investigation for “corruption and passive abuse of influence by a person holding an elected public office.”

In particular, the judicial authorities are trying to establish whether her income corresponds to a specific activity, or whether it was auxiliary work, behind which lobbying activities in the European Parliament, prohibited for MEPs, could be hidden.

Link:

• Carlos Ghosn, the former head of Renault-Nissan, is suing and seeking more than a billion dollars in damages