Nissan will acquire a 34% stake in Mitsubishi Motors, which became involved in the “fuel the scene” because of understating of data on fuel consumption in the technical documentation of the models, writes the Financial Times. The agreement was announced at a joint press conference the two automakers.
The publication notes that the announcement of the agreement was followed in conditions where Mitsubishi needs funds to survive the scandal.
The transaction value amounted to 237,3 billion yen ($2.2 billion), it will be closed until the end of 2016, Nissan will become the largest shareholder in Mitsubishi. “We will help this company solve the challenges it faced, in particular to restore the confidence of consumers to the system to save fuel,” — said at a press conference Executive Director of Nissan and Renault Carlos Ghosn.
The Chairman of the Board of Directors of Mitsubishi Motors Osamu Masuko said that to restore confidence will be difficult. “With Nissan we will start the movement towards this goal,” said Masuko.
Mitsubishi admitted to rigging the test results of fuel consumption for more than 600 thousand vehicles on April 20. This has led to a drop in the shares of the company by 43%.
The company said it has established an independent Commission to investigate the incident. Tests, the results of which were fabricated, held by 157 thousand vehicles thousand 468 Mitsubishi and Nissan cars. Namely Nissan, for vehicles Mitsubishi which also conducted tests, pointed out the inconsistency of the data, after which Mitsubishi conducted an internal investigation and found that the data were falsified.
Later, the Mitsubishi President Tetsuro Aikawa, admitted that the company falsified test results of fuel consumption in 1991. As noted then, Aikawa, investigation of fraud continues. The company President stressed that he did not know why his staff decided to engage in fraud.
Earlier in the fraud when carrying out tests on the emissions of harmful substances admitted by the company Volkswagen. Now she is negotiating with the US authorities regarding fines, which the automaker has to pay for fraud with the tests.
At the suit of the justice Department, filed in January 2016, Volkswagen faces a fine of up to $46 billion for violation of environmental legislation. In addition, in March more than 270 institutional investors from around the world submitted to the automaker sued for withholding information about the harmful exhausts by €3.3 billion At the end of March to the court on the Volkswagen filed a Federal trade Commission.
