But they boiled over as Mr Ghosn sought, at the French government’s behest, to make the alliance “irreversible”.Nissan read this as code for a full merger that would cement Gallic dominance. This, claims Mr Ghosn, led some in Nissan to manufacture charges in order to get rid of him.Nissan’s version is that he was a greedy tyrant who regarded the Japanese firm as a personal bank account.This claim gained more credence when French prosecutors also began an investigation of Mr Ghosn,including into the funding of a lavish party thrown for his wife’s birthday at the palace of Versailles―a far cry from his Japanese prison cell, where a bowl of rice gruel counted as luxury.The authors point to a clash of corporate cultures as the reason he may have sought to circumvent pay disclosure using a deferred-pay scheme,which Nissan claimed broke the law.In Japan and France ceos are paid far less than equivalent American bosses; doubtless he thought his skills should be properly rewarded by global standards.The competing narratives were never aired in court, though, after Japan’s criminal-justice system―which relies on prolonged incarceration and intense interrogation to obtain a confession―collided with Mr Ghosn’s stubborn refusal to admit any wrongdoing.Eventually released on bail, he fled in the belief that he would not receive a fair trial and would remain under house arrest for years.
