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CARLOS GHOSN – Has Carlos Ghosn resigned from his job at Renault? It all depends on “the interpretation.” The former boss of the diamond brand, who fled Japan where he is being prosecuted for embezzlement, has launched a legal battle against the automaker to claim nearly 800,000 euros in annual pension and 15 million in shares.
Resignation or not resignation? The word weighs heavily in the dispute which now opposes Carlos Ghosn to his former employer. The 65-year-old manager, who is forced to retire because of his legal problems, believes that his rights have been violated by Renault. He has initiated the first procedure before the social court, the industrial tribunal, and is preparing a second before a commercial court.
A resignation or a retirement?
The conflict between Carlos Ghosn and Renault concerns the conditions for his departure from the company. Believing that Carlos Ghosn had resigned from his post on January 23, 2019, while he was in prison in Japan for various alleged embezzlement, Renault announced last year that the Franco-Lebanese-Brazilian businessman had lost his rights to a “top hat” for a gross amount of 774,774 euros per year. To claim it, Carlos Ghosn had indeed to be still present as a corporate officer at the time of asserting his retirement rights.
The diamond group’s board of directors had also estimated that the former CEO had lost his rights to the shares that had been allocated to him between 2015 and 2018 as a reward for the constructor’s good performance. Their settlement was in fact subject to a condition of presence in the company four years after their award, “except retirement”. Considered to have resigned, Carlos Ghosn has thus lost 380,000 shares, the value of which is estimated at around 15.5 million euros at the current Renault share price.
The ex-CEO denies this “interpretation”. “I did not resign at all, I retired from my job as CEO (CEO, Editor’s note) to allow Renault to operate, it was in January, I was in prison. I couldn’t leave Renault paralyzed by a situation like this, “Carlos Ghosn again defended himself in an interview broadcast on France 5 on Monday evening. “From there to say that I resigned, frankly it is an interpretation which is specific to those who are saying that.”
His fight for his retirement indemnity
The former boss, who took refuge in Lebanon to flee a lawsuit according to him unfair, assures that he had left the company to claim his retirement rights when he was in fact prevented from leading the group . In this battle of jurists, “everything will depend on the interpretation of a resignation or not of Carlos Ghosn”, confirmed to AFP Charles Pinel, of the consultancy firm to investors Proxinvest.
As a former Renault employee, Carlos Ghosn has already applied for interim measures to industrial tribunals in Boulogne-Billancourt, the company’s headquarters in the southwest suburbs of Paris, to claim payment of his compensation of retirement. A hearing is scheduled for “late February”.
In the spring of 2019, the former boss had taken the steps to liquidate his retirement rights. “He has benefited from the payment of this pension since June 1, 2019, both under the basic plan and the Agirc-Arrco plan” of supplementary pensions from the French private sector, explain his supporters. “However, despite (…) his repeated requests to [Renault], his retirement indemnity has still not been paid to him, more than ten months after ”his departure.
Ghosn “unscrupulous” for the CGT union of Renault
This litigation before the tribunal relates “only” to an amount of 249,999.99 euros. But a victory on this aspect could help Carlos Ghosn on the more important files of the retirement hat and performance actions. A procedure on these elements is indeed envisaged soon before a commercial court, indicated its entourage.
“I have rights vis-à-vis Nissan, vis-à-vis Renault, which have not been respected, and I intend to claim them in court,” warned the former boss last Wednesday during ‘a press conference in Beirut.
“At a time when the government insists on planing workers’ pensions, ex-CEO Carlos Ghosn remains unscrupulous. He claims payment of an additional annual pension of almost 800,000 euros, about 637 times the minimum wage! “, Indignant the Renault CGT union.
See also on The HuffPost: Carlos Ghosn compares his arrest to the attack on Pearl Harbor
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