Values at the crossroads of politics and the market. The Ghosn affair as a test of corporate transparency and accountability

Résumé En

This chapter looks at the "Ghosn affair" in Japan and France, leading to the arrest, imprisonment and dismissal of the chairman of car giant Nissan-Renault-Mitsubishi on suspicion of financial misconduct. This scandal is analysed as revelatory of the values and expectations attached to the public and private responsibilities of big companies, especially as regards transparency and corporate governance norms, in both countries respectively. Public and experts' perceptions of Carlos Ghosn's alleged misconduct varied importantly in the two countries, revealing in each the underlying particularities of state-business relations. As for Japan, we present the common-held view of the Ghosn case as a symptom of the low level of transparency in Japanese corporations and confront it with the critics that see this as a simplifying explanation of a story that reflects the underlying particularities of Japanese corporate relations. We propose to interpret the resistance of Japanese firms to adopt Western standards of corporate governance as a part of the Japanese business strategy to adapt to globalisation through change that preserves uniqueness. The French reception of the Ghosn affair reveals, in turn, that what was perceived as transgressive was excess rather than fraud itselfe.g. the former CEO's astronomic incomes, proximity with French politicians and parties organised at the Versailles palace.