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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. I'm June Grosso. Every

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Speaker 1: day we bring you insight and analysis into the most

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Speaker 1: important legal news of the day. You can find more

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Speaker 1: episodes of the Bloomberg Law Podcast on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud

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Speaker 1: and on Bloomberg dot com slash podcasts. Carlos Gone will

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Speaker 1: get to see the outside of a Japanese prison for

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Speaker 1: the first time in almost two months. The former chairman

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Speaker 1: of Nissan has been indicted by Japanese prosecutors on allegations

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Speaker 1: of under reporting his compensation and held in prison under

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Speaker 1: questionable conditions, with prosecutors repeatedly extending his detention. It's not

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Speaker 1: because as alleged crime is so severe, or because he's

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Speaker 1: a flight risk, or because he doesn't have the bail money.

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Speaker 1: It's because of the Japanese legal system. Joining me is

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg columnist Joo Saraho has been following the legal saga,

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Speaker 1: So Joe. It took maneuvering by Gones lawyers to get

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Speaker 1: this court date, but his long detention without a bail

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Speaker 1: hearing is not unusual under the Japanese system. That that

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Speaker 1: is absolutely correct. The Japanese system is built around extracting

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Speaker 1: confessions not proving innocence or guilt in a courtroom using evidence.

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Speaker 1: And when you detain somebody for twenty two days or

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Speaker 1: forty four days under constant interrogation without your lawyer being present, yeah,

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Speaker 1: you can extract a confession or two that way. Not

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Speaker 1: only that, but what he has done this maneuver to

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Speaker 1: get a court hearing is really quite rare. There is

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Speaker 1: something like I read somewhere that of a hundred thousand

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Speaker 1: cases last year, only six hundred of these appeals were granted,

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Speaker 1: probably why the Japanese legal system has one of the

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Speaker 1: highest criminal conviction rates in the world. Now Gone has

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Speaker 1: chosen to appear in the courtroom for this hearing, and

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Speaker 1: his appearance will most likely contrast with the videos that

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Speaker 1: have been playing on Japanese TV of him during his

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Speaker 1: heyday at Nissan. What do you think he's trying to

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Speaker 1: say here, He's trying to show the world that he

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Speaker 1: has been under extreme and unfair dress. Uh. He supposedly

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Speaker 1: lost somewhere around thirty pounds. Uh. He's gonna be wearing

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Speaker 1: whatever it was he was wearing when he walked off

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Speaker 1: the airplane or when he was carted off the airplane. Um.

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Speaker 1: He is gonna look haggard, He's gonna look really tired. Um.

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Speaker 1: He has complained constantly about the cold, about about not

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Speaker 1: having enough blankets to sleep at night. So he's gonna

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Speaker 1: look bad. And I'm sure that his hope is that um,

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Speaker 1: the West will see it, especially France where he's still

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Speaker 1: the chairman and CEO over No, and that that that

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Speaker 1: that an outcry will ensue that will cause him to

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Speaker 1: be able to stay out of prison. Tell us about

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Speaker 1: this story, that this is sort of a palace intrigue

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Speaker 1: and a coup that's sort of behind the scenes. Okay, well,

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Speaker 1: first of all, let's let's acknowledge that Nissan denies that

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Speaker 1: there's any coup out that we've gotten that out of

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Speaker 1: the way. Um, the bottom line is that uh, Carlo's gone,

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Speaker 1: and his lawyers and his family and others many others

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Speaker 1: believe that what's really going on here is that Nissan

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Speaker 1: no longer wants to be part of this re No

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Speaker 1: alliance and that Going was planning on actually uh turning

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Speaker 1: the basically merging the two companies, and Nissan, which is

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Speaker 1: now much more successful than or Not, wants no part

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Speaker 1: of it, and they wanted to basically break off from it. Um.

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Speaker 1: But the only way they could figure out to do

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Speaker 1: it was to get rid of Going, and the best

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Speaker 1: way to get rid of Going was to throw him

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Speaker 1: in prison. So what are the charges actually that are

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Speaker 1: against him right now? Um? The only charges that are

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Speaker 1: the only thing he's actually been indicted for is this

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Speaker 1: this notion that he has hidden his part of his

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Speaker 1: compensation from the company. Um, there are there charges. There's

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Speaker 1: a lot of stuff that's been floating around the Japanese

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Speaker 1: press about, you know, whether he has bought homes on

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Speaker 1: with Nissan's money or transferred transferred losses onto Nissan's books.

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Speaker 1: But the only thing he's actually been indicted for is

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Speaker 1: this idea that he hid compensation, which he strongly denies. Now,

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Speaker 1: he was arrested with an associate, and the associate has

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Speaker 1: been allowed to go free on bail. What is the distinction.

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Speaker 1: What's the difference between the two of them. Well, the

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Speaker 1: difference between the two of them is that the only

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Speaker 1: the reason Going is back in prison is because they

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Speaker 1: came up with a different set of charges to hold

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Speaker 1: them after the first twenty two days. They can hold

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Speaker 1: somebody for twenty two days if they get these extensions

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Speaker 1: with the associate Mr Kelly. They they ran out of

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Speaker 1: the twenty two days, and they don't have other things

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Speaker 1: to charge him with except aiding and abetting going for

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Speaker 1: hiding his income. So they had no choice but to

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Speaker 1: let him out. Now he's out on bail, but he

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Speaker 1: can't leave Japan and he's basically for all intensive purposes

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Speaker 1: under house arrest, which I'm sure Carlos Gone would accept

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Speaker 1: as as one of the conditions. I would be willing

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Speaker 1: to bet that's where this is headed. Let's let's talk

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Speaker 1: a little bit about France's role here. As France intervened

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Speaker 1: at all with the Japanese. They may have quietly, but

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Speaker 1: they certainly have done nothing publicly. And Um it's pretty

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Speaker 1: astonishing really that one of their major industrialists, who's who's

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Speaker 1: insisting on his innocence and who is being held captive

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Speaker 1: in effect in a Japanese prison, that the France, that

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Speaker 1: France hasn't lifted a finger publicly for him. A lot

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Speaker 1: of people say it's because Macron, Uh Emmanuel Macron, the

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Speaker 1: president of the company is Um, has been paralyzed by

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Speaker 1: the yellow jacket protests and he's afraid that if he

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Speaker 1: tries to spring Carlos Gone and be looking at it

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Speaker 1: will be a case of elites helping elites and the

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Speaker 1: yellow jacket contingent will be up in arms. So what

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Speaker 1: does this say for the future of the Renault Nissan alliance?

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Speaker 1: Nothing good? I mean, no matter how this turns out

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Speaker 1: for Carlos Gone, it's hard to imagine that this alliance

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Speaker 1: can last. Let's talk a little bit about the Japanese system.

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Speaker 1: Has it come under criticism before? It has mildly, but

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Speaker 1: there's never been anybody quite so high profile before UM,

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Speaker 1: and so this has given the Japanese uh, this has

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Speaker 1: given people a pretty a larger window into how the

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Speaker 1: Japanese system works than any other previous case. There was

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Speaker 1: a case of a marketing representative UM who was arrested

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Speaker 1: because she brought opioids into the country for herself, but

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Speaker 1: that's against the law, and the same thing happened to

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Speaker 1: her and she was finally thrown out of the country.

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Speaker 1: But there's never been a case like this before. And

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Speaker 1: as far as the confessions, and as you said, according

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Speaker 1: to reports, he has been questioned repeatedly and without his

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Speaker 1: lawyer present, is there any indication that he's made a confession, no,

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Speaker 1: none whatsoever. And his lawyers have insisted that he has

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Speaker 1: not fest to anything and that he's innocent of all

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Speaker 1: the charges. So what happens at this hearing, Well, it's

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Speaker 1: pretty simple. It's really going to be hearing about whether

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Speaker 1: he should be thrown back into prison or not. Um.

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Speaker 1: I the judge has granted the his lawyers the right

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Speaker 1: to question why he's in prison. And I'm sure they're

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Speaker 1: gonna make these arguments like he's not going to go

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Speaker 1: anywhere and and there's no, he's not going to confess,

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Speaker 1: and he shouldn't be in prison. He wants to go

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Speaker 1: to trial. Uh, and I I strongly suspect that he

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Speaker 1: will not go back to prison after this. Well, it's

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Speaker 1: going to be an open court session, and he may

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Speaker 1: actually talk during this session. I know. I wish I

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Speaker 1: could go, so do I. Oh for cameras in the

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Speaker 1: courts again. All right, thanks so much, Joe. It's always

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Speaker 1: a pleasure. Bloomberg columnist jo No Sarah. Thanks for listening

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Speaker 1: to the Bloomberg Law Podcast. You can subscribe and listen

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Speaker 1: to the show on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, and on Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: dot com slash podcast. I'm June Brosso, This is Bloomberg