Posted on Jan. 13, 2020, 7:13 p.m.Updated on Jan 13, 2020 at 7:42 p.m.
Right in his boots. The board of directors of Renault is ready to take on Carlos Ghosn in court. The former CEO of Losange has made no secret of it, he intends to ” to assert his rights “ concerning the indemnities which, he considers, are due to him. He already seized the industrial tribunal at Boulogne Billancourt at the end of December, as revealed by “Le Figaro”, and he plans to also seize the commercial court in the coming weeks.
These remedies are not really a surprise for Renault, whose counsel had chosen knowingly to
deprive Carlos Ghosn of almost all of his allowances
, legal advice in support. “It was politically complicated anyway to pay millions of euros in compensation at that time”, points out a good connoisseur of the file.
Employee status
What are we talking about exactly? The recourse to industrial tribunal, for which a hearing is scheduled for the end of February, concerns a retirement indemnity of 250,000 euros. In his defense, Carlos Ghosn left the company in January in order to assert his pension rights. In the spring, he liquidated his rights under the general scheme and Agirc-Arrco, and has since claimed compensation to be paid by the company. According to a source familiar with the matter, the group believes, however, that it would not be fully entitled: it is due to employees, or Carlos Ghosn has not been employed since he became a corporate officer in 2005.
It is above all the issue of recourse before the Commercial Court which could be quantified. Carlos Ghosn claims
his retirement hat
(775,000 euros per year), as well as
380,000 performance shares
, valued at around 15 million euros. Two payments subject to presence conditions: to receive the first, the manager had to be in office when he left, or be dismissed. Similarly, part of the performance shares (linked to deferred compensation) are only due to him in the event of his presence in February 2019.
Presence condition
This question of presence is at the heart of the debate. “It is a fraud to say that I resigned”, did he declare
at his press conference in Beirut
. In the letter sent to the board of directors on January 23, 2019, the executive, acknowledging his “Impediment to exercise his functions”, put “An end to his terms of director general and president”, while claiming that “All of his rights recognized in corporate documents and by law are preserved”. The Board did, however, consider that terminating his term was tantamount to resigning. And therefore to deprive yourself of your rights.
According to some jurists, this might not be the mandate of the CEO who counts, but that of the director. However, at the end of January, Carlos Ghosn indicated that he did not end his directorships (he did so only in a letter dated April 2). “A tactic to assert that he was still present in the company”, explains a governance expert.
After having approached the gendarme of governance, the Renault board nevertheless considered that its presence as a director was not confirmed either: the High Corporate Governance Committee recalled that a director had an obligation to attendance and attendance, a condition he can no longer meet if he is prevented from exercising his functions for an indefinite period. The debates between jurists have only just begun.
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