Nissan, Investors Reach $36 Million Deal to End Securities Suit

Nissan Motor Co. Ltd. investors who say the company misled them about an alleged executive compensation scheme asked a federal judge in Tennessee for permission to move ahead with a $36 million deal resolving their securities dispute.

The cash settlement provides “significant relief” and represents a “substantial proportion of reasonably recoverable damages,” the Japanese automaker’s investors said in a memo filed in support of their preliminary settlement approval bid in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee.

Investors accuse Nissan of making misleading statements about former chairman Carlos Ghosn’s purported scheme to increase his pay through deferred compensation. Judge William L. Campbell Jr. in 2020 mostly rejected the company’s bid to have the suit thrown out.

The proposed settlement class consists of all investors who acquired Nissan’s American Depository Receipts from May 11, 2014, through Nov. 16, 2018, on the over-the-counter market, and all U.S. investors who acquired the company’s common stock during the same period. The class excludes those with certain close ties to Nissan.

Lead counsel Robbins Geller Rudman & Dowd LLP plans to ask for up to a third of the settlement fund—$12 million—as attorneys’ fees, which is “in line with similar fee requests granted by courts in the Sixth Circuit,” the April 22 memo said. The firm will also seek no more than $250,000 as reimbursement for its litigation expenses.

Latham & Watkins LLP and Bass, Berry & Sims PLC represent Nissan, which denies any wrongdoing.

The case is Jackson Cnty. Emps.’ Ret. Sys. v. Ghosn, M.D. Tenn., No. 3:18-cv-01368, preliminary settlement approval motion filed 4/22/22.