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Mitsubishi Motors
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Carla Bailo
Tetsuji Isozaki
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Hiroto Saikawa
Toshiyuki Shiga
Yoshifumi Tsuji
Ghosn —
Takeshi Isayama
Hideyuki Sakamoto
Masakazu Toyoda
Keiko Ihara
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Imazu
Masahito Nagata
Mr
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Yokohama
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160,000-employee
The result was a toothless board, internal watchdogs with no authority to investigate top executives and, according to Nissan’s new leaders and former employees, an imperious corporate leader.The environment was ripe for back-stabbing — and now Mr. Ghosn has said that is exactly what happened to him. Mr. Ghosn reasoned a more streamlined alliance was the only way to continue to dominate world car sales.Starting around 2011, when Mr. Ghosn outlined bold expansion plans for the Nissan-Renault alliance, he had begun to bring the two companies closer together, former executives said.His budgets — with spending cuts of 5 percent a year — forced integration in design and engineering. Mr. Ghosn also began naming executives whose responsibilities spanned the alliance.The distinctions between Nissan and Renault began to blur, wrongly so to its top Japanese managers.“The powertrain,” said Tetsuji Isozaki, a former union leader who worked on Nissan’s engine development team and is now a member of the Japanese Parliament, describing how the blurring began. The Japanese company relented only after Renault agreed to a joint statement in which it promised not to interfere in Nissan’s affairs.“A sense of urgency started growing from around that time,” Mr. Isozaki said.Still, Mr. Ghosn faced little internal opposition, the former employees said. Some Nissan executives believed Mr. Kawaguchi was being punished.In a report released on Wednesday, a panel convened by Nissan to examine its corporate governance said Mr. Ghosn brooked little dissent from directors or auditors. Former Nissan executives say the board deserved some blame for a corporate culture that could not hold Mr. Ghosn in check.Mr. Saikawa and Mr. Shiga had “a certain responsibility in all of this,” Mr. Isayama, the former Nissan vice chairman, said in an interview. “It is the fundamental duty of the auditor to report to the board.” Nissan declined to make Mr. Imazu available for questions.It was not the only time Nissan’s internal system of checks and balances departed from the norm.Mr. Ghosn installed an internal auditing team in the early 2000s that was meant to raise red flags over possible misconduct or misspending by employees. The governance report released on Wednesday said Mr. Ghosn would not reappoint auditors that the panel members described as “fastidious.”Further limiting scrutiny at the company, Nissan’s financial affairs were overseen by a number of people with cozy relationships with management.
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