In the Greg Kelly Nissan case, a Tokyo court convicted the former Nissan executive vice president in March 2022 of helping conceal part of Chairman Carlos Ghosn’s compensation, but only for one of the eight fiscal years prosecutors had charged. Kelly received a six-month prison sentence suspended for three years, and a separate U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission settlement cost him a $100,000 penalty and a five-year officer-and-director ban. The Tokyo High Court upheld the split verdict on February 4, 2025, and his appeal to Japan’s Supreme Court, filed the next day, remains pending.
What Prosecutors Said Kelly Did
Tokyo prosecutors accused Kelly of helping Ghosn hide roughly 9.08 billion yen in compensation from Nissan’s securities filings across fiscal years 2010 through 2017. The alleged scheme worked by deferring portions of Ghosn’s pay until after his retirement, keeping those amounts off the annual reports Nissan was required to file. The filings understated what the company actually owed its chairman.
Kelly’s legal background put him at the center of the prosecution’s theory. Investigators said he and subordinates drafted proposals and contracts structuring future payments so the money would flow to Ghosn once he stepped down, rather than appearing in current disclosures. Prosecutors treated Kelly not as a bystander but as the architect of the paperwork that kept the full earnings hidden.
The parallel SEC complaint painted the same picture in dollar terms. According to the Commission, Kelly provided “substantial assistance” in concealing more than $90 million in compensation and took steps to increase Ghosn’s retirement allowance by more than $50 million. Specific actions cited included drafting secret contracts, backdating letters granting Ghosn interests in Nissan’s long-term incentive plan, altering the calculation of his pension allowance, and misleading Nissan’s own chief financial officer about the pension increase.1U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Carlos Ghosn and Gregory L. Kelly
Arrest in Tokyo and Years of Bail
On November 19, 2018, Tokyo authorities arrested Kelly and Ghosn on suspicion of violating Japan’s Financial Instruments and Exchange Act. Kelly had flown to Tokyo believing he was attending a board meeting. He was detained upon arrival.
He spent more than a month in a Tokyo detention center before being released on bail on December 25, 2018. During that period he was interrogated without a defense attorney in the room, a standard practice under Japanese criminal procedure, where suspects can be questioned even after requesting a lawyer and even if they invoke their right to remain silent. International observers use the term “hostage justice” (hitojichi shiho) to describe the system, which permits repeated arrests on new charges to extend pre-indictment detention. Japan’s criminal courts convict in more than 99 percent of cases that go to trial.
After bail, Kelly could not leave Japan and could not contact most people connected to the case. He remained stuck in Tokyo for more than three years.
Ghosn’s Escape Left Kelly Alone
In late December 2019, Ghosn, also free on bail and awaiting trial, fled Japan. He traveled by bullet train from Tokyo to Osaka, where accomplices posing as musicians smuggled him onto a private jet hidden inside a large equipment case. The jet flew to Turkey, and Ghosn continued on to Beirut. Lebanon has no extradition treaty with Japan, and Ghosn has stayed there since, never standing trial on the charges against him.
His escape left Kelly as the only defendant in the courtroom when the trial opened in September 2020.
The Split Verdict
The trial stretched over many months and drew on thousands of pages of evidence and testimony from Nissan executives, some of whom had received immunity in exchange for cooperation. The central question was whether Kelly knew that the deferred compensation arrangements had to be disclosed and worked to prevent that disclosure.
On March 3, 2022, the Tokyo District Court delivered a split ruling. The judges acquitted Kelly of all charges covering fiscal years 2010 through 2016, finding that prosecutors had not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that he knew the reporting methods were illegal during those years. The court convicted him for fiscal year 2017 alone, concluding that his actions in that final year crossed into criminal underreporting. The sentence was six months in prison, suspended for three years, so Kelly would serve no time unless he committed another offense during the suspension period.
Why 2017 Was Different
The distinction between the seven acquitted years and the single conviction year came down to one meeting. In June 2018, Toshiaki Ohnuma, head of Nissan’s secretariat, said he showed Kelly a spreadsheet tallying Ghosn’s undisclosed compensation going back to fiscal year 2009. Ohnuma had signed an immunity agreement with prosecutors in October 2018, weeks before the arrests. Kelly acknowledged attending the meeting but denied ever seeing the document. No physical evidence definitively placed the spreadsheet in the room.
The court credited Ohnuma’s account for the 2017 fiscal year and treated the meeting as the point where Kelly gained enough awareness to bear criminal responsibility. For the earlier years, it found insufficient proof of the same level of knowledge. Critics have noted that the conviction rests heavily on a single immunized witness in a credibility contest with no corroborating documentation.
The SEC Settlement
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged Kelly with aiding and abetting violations of the anti-fraud provisions of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, specifically Section 10(b) and Rule 10b-5. To settle, Kelly agreed to a $100,000 penalty, a five-year bar from serving as an officer or director of a public company, a five-year suspension from practicing before the Commission as an attorney, and a permanent injunction against future anti-fraud violations.1U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Carlos Ghosn and Gregory L. Kelly
Home to Tennessee
Shortly after the March 2022 verdict, Kelly was free to leave Japan for the first time in more than three years. U.S. Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel publicly supported his departure. Kelly returned home to Tennessee, ending a stretch of separation from his family and confinement to a foreign country under bail restrictions.
Where the Case Stands Now
Both sides appealed. Kelly’s defense wanted the 2017 conviction thrown out; prosecutors wanted convictions reinstated for the other seven years. On February 4, 2025, the Tokyo High Court dismissed both appeals and upheld the original ruling in full. Kelly stands guilty only for fiscal year 2017; the acquittals for 2010 through 2016 remain intact.2The Asahi Shimbun. Japanese Court Upholds Conviction of American Who Helped Fugitive Former Nissan Chief Hide Pay
Kelly’s attorney, Yoichi Kitamura, filed an appeal to the Japanese Supreme Court on February 5, 2025. That is the last remaining avenue in Japan’s court system. Kelly is in the United States while the appeal proceeds. Because the sentence is suspended and the three-year suspension period from the March 2022 verdict is nearing its expiration, he faces no prison time barring a reversal of that suspension.