So is that it? After months of claim and counter-claim, Renault has wielded the axe on some top management in its notorious industrial espionage scandal that has seen the automaker embroiled in the one of the most startling episodes in French or indeed business history.
The bare bones of the story are well rehearsed. Renault accuses three top-ranking execs of er, industrial espionage, the Chinese get mentioned in dispatches, France’s secret service becomes involved, Swiss bank accounts, politicians and the future of electric vehicles all then get caught up in a maelstrom the like of which is almost unimaginable.
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And after that toxic cocktail, where did that axe fall? Well, it’s more of a scalping for Renault’s embattled number two, Patrick Pelata, who has had his second offer of resignation accepted by yesterday’s (11 April) extraordinary general meeting of Renault’s board in Paris.
The Renault take is: “Mr Patrick Pelata asked to be relieved of his duties” and although his request was duly granted, it seems he is to be quietly shunted sideways into the Renault-Nissan alliance.
It’s not clear what Pelata will do, although he will in the interim continue as COO, but he leaves with Renault CEO Carlos Ghosn’s ringing endorsement of: “Patrick Pelata’s skills remain valuable and are an asset for the group.”
Pelata’s boss appears to have escaped any sanction – apart from voluntarily eschewing a rather large bonus – and there remains a deafening silence as to what, vast, compensation Renault will offer its sacked trio. Presumably the lawyers are in a frenzy of calculations right now.
Other senior management in Renault – notably in its security group – have not been so fortunate – they will be shifted not sideways but out of the door or as Renault puts it: “Procedures in view of their leaving the company will be implemented.”
What has gone rather quiet is the trail concerning France’s security service, the DCRI, which perhaps naturally not a body to seek the limelight, has preferred to remain silent in the affair.
And after much initial harrumphing, the Chinese have maintained their distance too, preferring perhaps not to risk rocking the diplomatic boat any further.
Never let it be said that politicians can keep too far a distance though. The respective Ministers of Trade and Finance have periodically weighed into the affair, with the former boldly declaring the matter to be “economic war” at one stage.
This ‘spy’ scandal has ebbed and flowed with every passing day, bringing yet more sensational and unbelievable tales that defy even the most hardened cynic.
In it all, one word kept cropping up over and over again in French, that needed a bit of research – rocambolesque – which seems to mean implausible or fantastic in the fantastical sense.
No-where was it more apt than when one of the Renault three, Bertrand Rochette, was whisked to Switzerland to explain supposed Swiss bank accounts.
As he memorably recounted on French radio station RTL: “I waited the whole morning and they [security people] reappeared just before lunch to tell me the mission was cancelled. It was only after my return that I therefore realised I had to defend myself and I turned to lawyers.” Let’s hope the lunch was on Renault at least.
Fantastical, rocambolesque, it’s a perfect word to sum up what has been a roller-coaster of a story from start to finish, the like of which has rocked Renault and rocked France.
