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Greg Kelly Protests Criminal Trail, Terms it Vague
GREG KELLY PROTESTS CRIMINAL TRIAL, TERMS IT VAGUE
Even as almost three years elapsed, the ex-executive of Nissan, Greg Kelly, still seems to be speculating if the reason behind his arrest and criminal trial in Japan were not simply taken up in the corporate boardroom of Automaker. An American lawyer, Kelly, who worked for over thirty years for Nissan Motor Corporate, is awaiting a verdict in his trial on charges of financial delinquency in the case of Carlos Ghosn. The beleaguered exchairman of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi association escaped bail and fled to Lebanon in late 2019, leaving Kelly in Japan alone to face charges of Ghosn’s under-reported Nissan compensation. However, all allegations were denied by Kelly.
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During an exclusive interview with the media on August 19, 2021, at his Tokyo based residence, where he was granted bail, Kelly he never thought any of them were indulged in a crime any criminal activity. Referring to Ghosn, Kelly said, “We only tried to solve a business problem that was the way of lawful actions you take to keep a very valuable executive that were underpaid per the company rules”. Kelly, who faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted and is forbidden from leaving Japan as he awaits his fate, further said, “It should have been resolved at the corporate level at Nissan. It’s not a criminal matter”. A verdict is not expected until March. More than 99 per cent of Japanese criminal trials result in convictions.
Behind him, the walls of the apartment Kelly shares with his wife, Dee, were plastered with photos of his two grandsons, including a 20-month-old baby he has never held. Family is most important, the 64-year-old Kelly said, especially this late in life. Kelly said that as one enters into his or her sixties (60s), he or she never looks at a long horizon,. “Every day that you miss with your family, you know, that to me is the stress. In order to spend 33 months without my family, just for a corporate matter, it does not just make a lot of sense. Kelly was working for Nissan but living in the Nashville area of Tennessee when he was asked to come to Japan for a meeting in November 2018.
Since he was scheduled for neck fusion surgery to address a painful spinal condition he suggested a video conference. But Nissan booked a corporate jet for him, promising he would be back within the week. After landing in Japan, he got in a van. The driver asked if he could pull over and make a call. All of sudden the van door opened, and several men rushed in, identifying themselves as prosecutors and a translator. Kelly was taken to a detention center, handcuffed and searched, then led to an interrogation room, and questioned by prosecutors, initially without a lawyer present. “It was a shock,” he said. He was kept in solitary confinement for 35 days and interrogated daily. He was confused. He could not call his wife. He pleaded to be allowed to get help from Nissan. He was not at all aware whether Nissan was behind his
arrest. In order to pass the time as he awaits a verdict, Kelly takes long walks with his wife, who moved to Japan in January 2019 on a student visa, taking Japanese language courses to be near her husband.
Kelly says he is lucky to have Dee, his college sweetheart from their days at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois. She was at his trial, giving her husband a thumbs-up as he walked into the courtroom with his lawyers. Sitting in the front row, she took copious notes since court transcripts are only in Japanese. Dee Kelly said she was taking a walk near the couple’s home in November 2018, when she heard a radio report about the arrest of Ghosn and an
American executive. You feel like you cannot breathe, she said without knowing about the fact that was likely to be happened to her husband while on a business trip. “You work all your life so you can have time during retirement to spend with your kids, and we really wanted to play a big part in our grandkids’ lives, and that was taken,” she said of the events that have unfolded since. Kelly dedicated his life to Nissan, she said. “To have him treated like this, especially by people that were your friends. That’s really hard”.
Unknown except to several top Nissan officials, salary of Ghosn was slashed from about 2 billion yen to 1 billion yen in fiscal 2009, when the disclosure of individual executive pay became required in Japan. Prosecutors contend there was an elaborate plan to make up for the pay cut, which should have been documented in Nissan’s annual securities report. At trial, they presented as evidence tables on Ghosn’s unpaid salary, kept meticulously by another Nissan official. Kelly says he didn’t know about the tables. From Ghosn’s native Lebanon, the auto magnate-turned-international fugitive has denied accusations of underreporting his compensation and misusing company funds, contending he was the victim of a corporate coup linked to a decline in Nissan’s financial performance as the Japanese automaker resisted losing autonomy to French partner Renault. Meanwhile, Ghosn mounted a robust defense of Kelly, saying: Obviously he is innocent. “Some observers think that Kelly may be a bit of a pawn in the effort of the government to salvage its reputation after Ghosn escaped, said Carl Tobias, Williams Chair in Law at the University of Richmond. At the end, there, possibly there were no winners in this sordid story. Yoichi Kitamura, Kelly’s chief attorney, says that in his 43 years as a defense lawyer, he has never encountered a case like the one against Kelly. “There is absolutely no evidence,” Kitamura said, adding there was no motive either. Nissan and the prosecutors got together and concocted this into a criminal case. Kelly was just trying to do what he thought was best for Nissan, Kitamura added. Hari Nada, who worked with Kelly in Nissan human resources, went to prosecutors about Ghosn’s unpaid compensation, according to Nada’s testimony in Kelly’s trial. Nada is one of two Nissan officials who got a plea bargain to avoid prosecution. Kelly says he may have been singled out because he, like Ghosn, supported a merger for Nissan and Renault, to strengthen the alliance in a way he thought would make the companies more equal yet remain competitive. Nada, former Nissan Chief Executive Hiroto Saikawa and several other Japanese executives opposed the merger, according to court testimony. “It was a small group that put together this scenario”, Kelly said of his and Ghosn’s arrests. John and Dave Kelly, Greg Kelly’s brothers, were at the Chicago Auto Show last month, with cousins, spouses and friends all wearing “Free Greg Kelly” hats and T-shirts, to picket and hand out leaflets. “To commit a crime, you have to have a motive. Greg didn’t get anything. He was trying to help Nissan,” Dave Kelly, a petroleum engineer who lives in Lafayette, Louisiana, said. He was just doing his job. The brothers grew up playing baseball and football in their backyard together. John Kelly said that he was always an honest guy. He was always someone you could trust and talk to a general surgeon in Oneida, New York.
ANOTHER PANDEMICERA TO KNOCK IN FORM OF JOBLESSNESS
Amid worries over the delta variant of the Coronavirus, the job markets seem to be improving and heading into the fall. This is the First-time when filings for unemployment insurance have hit a pandemic-era low during the third week of August 2021.
Growing unemployment has claimed during the third week of August 2021. As per the information procured from the Labor Department altogether, 348,000, were unemployed. It has been estimated below the Dow Jones estimate for 365,000 and a decline of 29,000 from the first week of August in the very same year. The last time claims were this low was March 14, 2020, just as the Covid-19 pandemic declaration hit and sent the United States economy strengthening into its deepest but briefest recession on record.
In the days that followed, more than 22 million Americans would be sent to the unemployment line, sending the jobless rate skyrocketing to 14.8 per cent. The jobs market has been on a steady recovery trajectory from then but remains well off its pre-pandemic health. Stocks were unstable following the news, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average well off its lows for the morning and down just slightly in early trading.
Continuing claims also fell, dropping to 2.82 million on a 79,000 decline from the week before. That data runs a week behind the headline claims number and also represented a new low since the pandemic struck. Most of those accumulating the benefits under all programs fell to 11.74 million, a decline of 311,787 for the week ended July 31 and owing mostly to a big drop in those getting enhanced benefits that would come to a complete close by September this year. During the last year, the total under all programs stood at 28.7 million. A considerable number of the turn down in claims came from Texas, which fell by 8,311, according to unadjusted data. Illinois also declined 3,577 and Michigan was lower by 2,188. On the whole, the crash could be good news for jobs market that has seen nonfarm payrolls increase by 2.5 million over the past three months and the unemployment rate fall to 5.4 per cent from 6.3 per cent at the beginning of the year. The data collected on August 10, 2021 shows the period that the Labor Department uses as its survey week for the monthly nonfarm payrolls count.
With over 6 million Americans are being considered employed now than prior to the pandemic, a huge jobs gap is being witnessed. In July 2021, there were almost 8.7 million workers looking for jobs, though that was well below the 10 million or so job openings in the United States.
The experts consider a multitude of causes for the incapability to get back to complete employment. Among them are ongoing fears about the pandemic, workers pressing for higher wages and the enhanced government benefits that have lower the incentives for getting jobs. In response to the present scenario and job conditions across the world, the wages are being increased with average hourly earnings up to 4 per cent a year over year in July 2021. Before the pandemic, that would have been a record in data going back to March 2007.
Another media report on August 20, 2021 showed the pace of manufacturing growth in the Philadelphia region. The Philadelphia Fed’s manufacturing index declined to 19.4 from 21.9 the month before. The reading represents the percent difference between firms seeing expansion versus those witnessing reduction. The level was below the report prepared by the Dow Jones estimate of 22.
