In his first legal battle, former Nissan chairman Carlos Ghosn declared on Tuesday that he would fight “to the end” in the $1 billion case he has filed against the Japanese automaker.

Nissan, as well as 12 people and two other companies, are accused of fabricating important evidence in Ghosn’s case, which he filed in Lebanon and a copy of which was seen by Reuters.

Nissan won’t be commenting, according to a spokeswoman.

“We have a long battle in front of us. We are going to fight it to the end,” Ghosn told Reuters in Lebanon, where he has lived since fleeing Japan hidden in a box aboard a private jet.

In addition to $500 million in moral harm, Ghosn is suing for $588 million in lost compensation.

“What I am asking for is only a little compensation compared to what they’ve done to me,” the 69-year-old, wearing a blue open-necked shirt, said during an interview in Beirut.

Ghosn, a former giant of the global auto industry, was detained in Japan in late 2018 and charged with underreporting earnings, trust-breach, and theft of corporate money.

He refuted the allegations and maintained that Nissan had set him up by having him detained.

In December 2019, as he awaited trial, Ghosn left Japan. Once in Lebanon, the country where he grew up, he said he was avoiding a “rigged” court system and would clear his name.

Prosecutors in Tokyo earlier declared that Ghosn’s claims of a plot were untrue.

When asked if Renault, a partner in the alliance he helped create with Nissan, will be added to his legal action, Ghosn responded that his immediate attention was on Nissan.

“I’m not precluding anything for the future. Today we are concentrating on the Nissan plot,” he said.

If found guilty, Nissan “will have to pay”, Ghosn said.

“It’s a large company and they have assets everywhere and you can go after their assets anywhere, so this is not a joke,” he said. “I hope they are going to provision this amount of money and I hope they are going to talk to their shareholders about what is happening and why this is happening,” he said.

Ghosn, who is dual-nationality French, Lebanese, and Brazilian, claimed he hasn’t left Lebanon since 2019 due to a Japan-issued Interpol Red Notice.

“I’m stuck here. I cannot make a complaint of this size in another country,” he said, adding that putting his case together had taken his legal team time as they reconstituted the facts.

According to a legal source in Lebanon, the prosecutor has set the first court appearance for September 18 to start the case.

On the day of his arrest in Japan, Ghosn claimed that documents had been stolen under false pretences from his house in Lebanon and given to Japanese officials.

According to his case, crimes were committed in Lebanon, Japan, France, Brazil, the United States, and the Netherlands and that “the sanctity of a residence” had been breached.

“I have the intention get my rights back, to repair my reputation,” he said. “I am going to dedicate all the time necessary for the truth to prevail.”

(Adapted from Nikkei.com)

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