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The Morning Ledger: Carlos Ghosn, Nissan Charged in Compensation Probe |
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Carlos Ghosn was arrested last month in Tokyo. PHOTO: CHARLES PLATIAU/REUTERS
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Good day. Japanese prosecutors on Monday brought charges against Nissan Motor Co. and former Chairman Carlos Ghosn for underreporting his compensation on company financial reports over five years, following the executive's arrest in Tokyo on Nov. 19, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Reports vs. reality? Prosecutors said Mr. Ghosn’s compensation was actually ¥1.78 billion ($15.8 million) in the year ended March 2011 but Nissan reported only ¥982 million. For the four years from April 2011 through March 2015, Ghosn’s actual compensation was ¥8.08 billion but Nissan reported only ¥4.01 billion, prosecutors said.
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Unreported vs. deferred: People familiar with the matter have said the compensation that prosecutors describe as unreported was deferred until after Mr. Ghosn’s retirement. A person familiar with Nissan’s investigation of Mr. Ghosn has said he built up about $82 million in deferred pay over a period of nine years.
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Being put to the test: Nissan said it took the indictment “extremely seriously” and would overhaul its corporate governance and compliance rules. Mr. Ghosn denies wrongdoing, according to public broadcaster NHK. The office of his lawyer, Motonari Otsuru, declined to comment.
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The U.S. Labor Department publishes job openings and turnover data for October.
French President Emmanuel Macron is scheduled to address the public Monday evening after a fourth consecutive weekend of “yellow vest” protests unleashed another torrent of rioting. The country's economy will grow slower in the fourth quarter than originally forecast due to the protests, the Bank of France said Monday.
ABM Industries Inc., Casey's General Stores and Stitch Fix Inc. are among the companies slated to report earnings Monday.
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The British Parliament is set to vote on Tuesday on whether to ratify the Brexit deal that Prime Minister May spent nearly two years hammering out. This comes after the European Union ruled that Britain is free to cancel its notification to leave the bloc.
The U.S. Labor Department Wednesday releases November inflation figures. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal expect headline inflation to have slowed and prices excluding the volatile food and energy categories to have continued to grow at a similar pace to October’s growth.
Also on Wednesday, Brazil’s central bank is expected to keep rates at the historic low of 6.5% set in March. EU leaders meet Thursday and Friday to discuss the bloc's budget from 2021 to 2027.
On Friday, China is going to release its monthly business-activity data for November. Economists expect industrial output and retail sales to have either held steady or improved slightly, as Beijing steps up its efforts to spur economic growth.
The U.S. Commerce Department Friday publishes consumer spending data for November. Economists surveyed by the WSJ expect spending to continue to grow in November, but at a slower pace. Also on Friday, the U.S. Federal Reserve releases November industrial-production data.
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Huawei Arrest Sparks Retaliation Fears Among Foreign Companies |
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Wanzhou Meng, chief financial officer of Chinese tech giant Huawei. Ms. Meng was arrested in Canada this month. PHOTO: ALEXEI DRUZHININ/RUSSIAN PPIO/ZUMA PRESS
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Executives of foreign firms operating in China are bracing for potential blowback from Chinese authorities following the arrest of Huawei Technologies Co.’s finance chief, report CFO Journal's Nina Trentmann and Tatyana Shumsky.
Some American and European executives said they are concerned about potential business disruptions and safety of their personnel if managers are detained or banned from China, said several lawyers and business groups.
“The possibility of retaliatory measures certainly exists,” said Gregory Jaeger, special counsel at legal firm Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP. “Such measures could involve the detention of U.S. executives or the prosecution of companies operating in China for real or imagined offenses.”
The arrest comes amid heightened tensions between the U.S. and China, as the world’s two largest economies have struggled to reach a resolution to a nearly yearlong trade dispute that escalated through several rounds of reciprocal tariffs that have hampered global trade.
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Lyft has raised $5.1 billion to date, compared with about $20 billion for Uber. Both figures include debt financing. PHOTO: SHANNON STAPLETON/REUTERS
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The race between Uber Technologies Inc. and Lyft Inc. to go public next year promises to extend their rivalry for customers to competition for global investors. Both companies last week filed their paperwork with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for their planned initial public offering.
Two large British banks--HSBC Holdings PLC and Standard Chartered PLC--are among those ensnared in the controversy over Huawei Technologies Co., which escalated over the weekend after the Chinese government warned Canada it would face “severe consequences” if it didn’t release the company's finance chief.
Gilead Sciences Inc. has named industry veteran Daniel O’Day to take the helm and help the drug company revive sales and recover from a disappointing deal.
A longtime shareholder is giving Yelp Inc.’s management and board a bad review. SQN Investors LP said years of missteps are weighing on the business-review company’s stock price and plans to publicly push it to add new board members.
The Chevrolet Volt is headed to the scrap heap, but during its decade on the market the electric vehicle reflected the strengths and weaknesses of General Motors Co. and auto making in Detroit.
Two of the brothers who sold Rice Energy Inc. to EQT Corp. last year say the $4.7 billion oil-and-gas company is mismanaging its assets, and they want to take over running the company.
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U.K. Launches Corporate Governance Code for Closely Held Firms |
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A coalition of regulators and business associations on Monday launched a new code for the corporate governance of large, closely-held U.K. companies, in a bid to improve trust and confidence among stakeholders following a number of high-profile corporate failures.
The Wates Corporate Governance Principles apply to companies with more than 2,000 employees, a turnover of more than £200 million ($254.3 million million) and a balance sheet of more than £2 billion, the Financial Reporting Council--part of the coalition behind the new code--said in a note. The principles focus on six areas, including board composition, director responsibilities and remuneration.
"Several large-scale corporate failures have not only drawn public attention to the need for improved transparency and accountability, but also highlighted the risks to wider stakeholders, including the workforce, suppliers and customers, when problems arise," the FRC said. The new corporate governance requirements apply to companies' reports for financial years starting on or after Jan. 1, 2019.
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Elon Musk told ‘60 Minutes’ he would keep tweeting, and would have Tesla review his posts only if they had potential to move stock prices. PHOTO: KYLE GRILLOT/REUTERS
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Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Elon Musk delivered a new barrage of criticism at the SEC, saying he doesn’t respect the agency and that his communications on Twitter haven’t been censored by the company.
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Robert Lighthizer, the Trump administration’s point man, on U.S.-China trade negotiations said the U.S. would hold fast to its 90-day deadline for the conclusion of a lasting agreement, adding that the U.S. would impose punishing tariffs on Chinese imports if none is reached.
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As the Big Four accounting firms in the U.K. are criticized over the quality of their audits, some investors worry about the work the companies have done on the audits of U.S. companies.
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Australia’s antitrust regulator called for measures to curb the influence of Facebook Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google in news and advertising and warned that a tech-sector watchdog may be needed to prevent abuses of power.
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An assembly line at the Chrysler Jeep plant in Toledo, Ohio. PHOTO: REBECCA COOK/REUTERS
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U.S. employers slowed their hiring in November, but wage growth matched the highest rate in nearly a decade and unemployment held at its lowest level in nearly half a century, signs of an economy that could be losing some momentum at the end of a strong year.
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Chinese exports slowed unexpectedly last month as demand weakened in most markets, except in the U.S. where strong growth in imports put China on track to post another record trade surplus.
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Japan’s economy contracted more sharply than initially estimated in the July-September quarter due to weaker-than-expected capital spending by companies, government data showed Monday, reports Reuters.
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Growth in the U.K. economy has slowed to 0.4% in the three months to October, slower than the 0.6% in the three months to September, reports the BBC.
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