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A ruling issued on Friday, March 11, 2022, showed that a Swiss court rejected an appeal by an Arab businessman in an effort to prevent Japanese prosecutors from obtaining his bank account details as part of their investigation into fugitive Carlos Ghosn, the former Nissan boss.
Ghosn, the architect of the Renault-Nissan car alliance, has faced numerous investigations since he fled to Lebanon from Japan in late 2019, and says he hopes to clear his name in the financial deviation cases brought against him.
Ghosn was chairman of both Nissan and Mitsubishi and CEO of Renault when he was arrested in Japan in 2018 on charges of underreporting his salary and misusing company funds for personal use. For his part, Ghosn denies any wrongdoing.
Japanese prosecutors sought legal assistance from Switzerland to obtain documents from bank accounts belonging to one of Ghosn’s partners. Prosecutors in Zurich agreed last year to extradite her, which prompted the unidentified partner to appeal and the Federal Criminal Court said on Friday it had rejected it.
“The Japanese authorities have material evidence that the money allegedly coming from illegal business may have been deposited in two accounts in the name of the complainant” in two unidentified banks, the ruling said.
The ruling did not mention the name of the business partner who filed the appeal. Prosecutors in Zurich only indicated that he is an Arab businessman whose respective accounts are in two banks in Zurich.