Renault-Nissan Marriage Is in Jeopardy After Ghosn’s Escape
Executives had been trying to mend a shattered alliance when the former chairman began bad-mouthing them, sowing mistrust.
For Renault SA and Nissan Motor Co., the Carlos Ghosn saga is a nightmare that never seems to end. Fallout from their ex-boss’s November 2018 arrest in Tokyo for alleged financial crimes permeated deep into the French and Japanese carmakers’ operations, paralyzing decision-making and straining their two-decade-old partnership nearly to the breaking point.
Yet in the last few months of 2019, the companies gave themselves a second chance to mend the shattered relationship. In a bid to start anew, Nissan replaced top management and Renault dramatically ousted its chief executive officer, former Ghosn protégé Thierry Bollore. But the bad dream came back with a vengeance when Ghosn burst back onto the global scene as an international fugitive, following a spectacular escape from Japan and his strict bail restrictions to his native Lebanon.