Fugitive Nissan boss Carlos Ghosn is a one-man study in executive entitlement

The contents of Ghosn’s speech yesterday was less arresting than the style of his performance

I fully expected an exercise in self-justification from Carlos Ghosn. The fugitive former Nissan boss escaped Japan in dramatic fashion, resurfacing on New Year’s Eve in Lebanon, where his press conference yesterday was the hottest ticket in town.

Self-justification was exactly what the world was treated to yesterday in Beirut, in the form of a rambling address that lasted more than an hour before questions were taken, punctuated by smatterings of applause from an adoring local press.

Before his dramatic downfall, the motor industry emperor was contemplating retirement. One of his retirement plans was said to have been joining the MBA speaker circuit. MBA students would do well to watch this performance. It was a one-man study in executive entitlement, a salutary tale of the dangers of believing your own hype.

As expected, Ghosn, facing charges of financial misconduct, used his pulpit to rail against his former employer, colleagues and the Japanese government – though much to the relief of his Lebanese hosts and Japanese prosecutors, who must already have been feeling the onset of migraine, he didn’t mention anyone by name.

This episode has cast a somewhat unflattering light on the Japanese justice system, the broad licence it gives to prosecutors, and its 99.4 per cent conviction rate (“And I bet it’s much higher for foreigners,” said Ghosn, ignoring the fact that you can’t get much higher than that).

Ghosn spent more than 100 days in Japanese captivity before being granted bail, one condition of which was his characterisation as a flight risk. “Brutal, inhuman, a violation of human rights,” he told the Lebanese press of his treatment by the Japanese authorities.

That said, it didn’t seem to register that he was speaking in a country that hardly has a spotless human rights record itself. For while Lebanon is by no means the worst place in the Middle East to be accused of a crime, its treatment of dissidents, women and gay people is less than stellar, as the country’s Amnesty International profile makes clear.

The contents of Ghosn’s speech yesterday – part a case for his defence, part “a pox on my enemies”, and part corporate presentation – was less important than the style of his performance.

It was a show put on by a man who’d read his own hagiographies and bought into their depiction of him as a corporate superstar, whose self-regard towers over the Babel of languages he speaks (with Japanese the notable exception).

He portrayed himself as a wounded lion pursued by cruel hunters, backed by the grateful people of Lebanon, but also of Japan, where they love him on the streets and in the restaurants (especially those), didn’t you know?

If that was true then, it probably isn’t any longer.

Ghosn epitomises a very American style of corporate excess, where the lines between CEO and company are often fuzzy. He seemed genuinely puzzled about why people have made a fuss about the houses bought for his use at Nissan’s expense, the lavish Versailles party he hosted, his enormous salary – and despite it all, had the gall to characterise himself as a humble “servant” of Japan.

It’s regularly noted that greater corporate misdeeds than those Ghosn has been accused of have been overlooked in Japan. Less often commented upon is the cultural offence Ghosn committed in a nation that values modesty. It’s the ostentatious character of his alleged misdeeds, not simply any alleged dishonesty, that has fuelled his opponents’ anger.

Ghosn only gave them more arrows to fling at him when. Asked how he missed the alleged conspiracy against him, he compared his unawareness of it to the Americans’ unawareness of the Pearl Harbour attack; a deliberately provocative, deeply insensitive offensive analogy. Carlos, people died.

While Ghosn’s performance will have softened few minds already hardened against him, I don’t imagine he did himself many favours with the neutrals, either.

As for his enemies, they will gird their loins – they have all the more reason to do so now.