Japan

The latest investigation by Tokyo prosecutors into Nissan Motor Co.’s Carlos Ghosn centers on his relationship with a Saudi Arabian businessman, Khaled Al Juffali, who runs part of Nissan’s Middle East business, the Wall Street Journal reported. Some of the people said that payments by Nissan to a Juffali company — on which prosecutors have cast suspicion — were for legitimate business purposes. Ghosn was initially arrested in Tokyo on Nov. 19 and charged Dec. 10 with underreporting his income on Nissan’s financial statements.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Cabinet approved a record initial budget for the 2019 fiscal year that offers plenty of help for consumers facing a higher sales tax while increasing the nation’s debt load, at least for now, Bloomberg News reported. The budget will top 100 trillion yen ($890 billion) for the first time, highlighting the government’s push to head off a potential economic downturn when the levy rises in October. The broad outline of the plans were revealed earlier in the week in draft documents.

Five months ago, Carlos Ghosn, a multimillionaire executive credited with reviving Nissan Motors, hosted the wedding of his daughter Caroline on Naoshima, a rarefied island enclave of art and sculpture. Now, Ghosn is living in a Tokyo jail cell, unable to communicate with his daughter or any family member, as investigators explore possible financial wrongdoing related to his nearly 20-year career at Nissan, the New York Times reported.

Nissan announced this morning that it planned to remove Mr. Ghosn as its chairman, saying an internal investigation had found that for years he underreported his salary by millions of dollars and committed other acts of “misconduct,” the International New York Times reported. Nissan said it was working with the Japanese authorities. According to news reports, prosecutors are preparing to arrest Mr. Ghosn. The developments could bring about a swift fall for Mr.

Toshiba Corp. said Thursday it would liquidate its U.K. nuclear business and sell its U.S. natural-gas business, taking a combined loss of nearly $1 billion. The moves are intended to clear away legacy problems after Toshiba went through waves of restructuring in the past three years that included the bankruptcy of its former Westinghouse Electric business in the U.S., The Wall Street Journal reported. The U.K. business—NuGeneration Ltd., known as NuGen—had sought to build what was planned as Europe’s largest new nuclear project in northwest England.

Toshiba is set to liquidate UK nuclear arm NuGen, according to people familiar with the company, dealing a hammer blow to plans to build a new plant at Moorside in Cumbria. The Japanese conglomerate, whose board is meeting on Thursday, is almost certain to take the decision to wind up NuGen after all avenues to sell the unit were exhausted, the Financial Times reported. “It is 80 per cent likely that Toshiba will decide at the board meeting to wind it up,” a source close to NuGen told the Financial Times.

Bank of Japan Governor Haruhiko Kuroda said on Monday the central bank was aware that prolonged ultra-loose monetary policy could squeeze financial institutions' margins and potentially destabilize the country's banking system, the International New York Times reported on a Reuters story. Given subdued inflation and uncertainty surrounding overseas economies, however, he said the BOJ needed to maintain its massive stimulus programme while keeping a watchful eye on the merits and costs of its policy.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is arranging 220 billion yen ($2 billion) in financial support for its aircraft unit, which has struggled to deliver its first passenger plane, national broadcaster NHK reported on Tuesday. Mitsubishi Heavy said in a statement that it was considering ways to resolve excess liabilities at the unit, but added it had not yet made any decisions, Reuters reported.