Riyadh  — Mubasher: Nissan Motor Co.’s Saudi Arabian business partner, a company controlled by Saudi investor Khaled Juffali, has defended the Japanese automaker's ousted chairman Carlos Ghosn in its first public statement since the embattled executive’s re-arrest.

On 21 December 2018, Japan’s prosecutors re-arrested Ghosn after accusing him of improperly transferring personal investment losses to the Japanese automaker.

Nissan Saudi business partner Juffali said his firm helped the car manufacturer settle a dealership dispute and lay the ground for a “joint venture in justifying $14.7 million in payments now under scrutiny by Tokyo prosecutors in the investigation of ousted Chairman Carlos Ghosn,” Bloomberg News reported on Tuesday.

“The $14.7 million in payments over four years from Nissan Motor Co. were for legitimate business purposes in order to support and promote Nissan’s business strategy in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and included reimbursement for business expenses,” according to a statement issued on behalf of Khaled Juffali Company.

Since his initial arrest on 19 November 2018, Ghosn has been detained in a Japanese jail. The prosecutors accused in mid-December the embattled executive and former representative director Greg Kelly, who has been released on bail, of under-reporting income on Nissan’s financial statements.

On 21 December, Japanese prosecutors re-arrested Ghosn on suspicion of “aggravated breach of trust” by allegedly shifting obligations on his personal investment losses to Nissan, thereby inflicting financial damage to the carmaker, according to the New York-based newspaper.

Ghosn was accused in the latest arrest warrant of breaching Japan’s Companies Act by allegedly causing financial harm to Nissan. If convicted, he could face a substantial prison sentence.

One issue is whether Juffali, chairman of one of the kingdom’s biggest conglomerates, E.A. Juffali & Brothers, delivered anything of value in return for four payments he received totalling $14.7 million, Bloomberg said.

In its statement, issued by its New York-based public relations representative Terry Rooney, Juffali’s firm said it played an important role in resolving a dealership dispute with a local partner that had undermined Nissan’s Middle East sales and winning government approval for a joint venture called Nissan Saudi Arabia.

The statement said that the Saudi investor’s company “worked for years to secure the approval and funding for a new Nissan manufacturing plant in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”

“Clearly, Khaled Juffali Co. has provided manifold, tangible services that continue to inure to the substantial benefit of Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. and Nissan Middle East,” it added.