TOKYO, Sept. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Japanese government on Tuesday said it supported the decision of Nissan Motor Co. CEO Hiroto Saikawa's decision to step down for accepting huge amounts in overcompensation from an executive remuneration scheme at the automaker.
The government said Saikawa's stepping down was evidence of the Yokohama-based automaker's corporate governance reforms working effectively in the wake of the high-profile arrest of the company's former boss Carlos Ghosn for alleged financial misconduct.
"The resignation proves that corporate governance is working. We have also been involved in supporting Nissan's implementation of corporate governance measures," economy minister Hiroshige Seko told a press briefing on the matter.
Japan, once a bastion of the manufacturing industry, has found its global image severely diminished amid a number of scandals in which the firms involved have been accused of lax corporate governance.
Seko said the arrest of Ghosn specifically had led to a great deal of distrust in corporate governance at Japanese firms as a whole and intimated that Nissan installing a new board with a majority of outside directors as part of its reforms was a step in the right direction.
A probe by Nissan revealed that Saikawa, who became CEO in April 2017, and was once a member of Ghosn's inner circle, had received tens of millions of yen through stock appreciation rights than he was not entitled to.
The probe found that he was overpaid by around 47 million yen (438,000 U.S. dollars) through an equity-linked remuneration scheme in 2013. Nissan's stock appreciation rights scheme allows directors to receive a bonus if the company's share price performs well. It was purportedly introduced to raise morale among executives.
