Nissan Motor Acceptance Corporation Reports the Real Facts About Lending Practices

      - Plaintiffs' Reports Distort the Facts and Contain Flawed Data -

    GARDENA, Calif., July 10 Today, Nissan Motor Acceptance
Corporation (NMAC) strongly refuted alleged discrimination claims reported in
several media stories.  Various articles have cited reports prepared by
Professors Cohen and Ayres, which were actually paid for by the plaintiffs'
trial lawyers in the Cason v NMAC lawsuit pending in federal court in
Nashville, Tennessee.  NMAC attacked the analysis in the reports as grossly
flawed in both methodology and conclusion.  NMAC also sharply criticized the
New York Times and other media for implying that the reports were objective
university research.  "In actuality, these reports are the work of plaintiffs'
hired guns in a litigation case, and were not sanctioned, approved by or
sponsored by any University, nor did NMAC participate in the preparation of
the reports," said a Nissan spokesperson.  NMAC's own experts have torn apart
the reports cited this week and concluded that the plaintiffs were not
discriminated against in any way by either NMAC or the dealer.
    NMAC, with a longstanding record of fair lending practices, does not
collect race data in its credit applications, does not even know the race of
its applicants and therefore could not intentionally discriminate.  In Cason,
plaintiffs are attempting to claim that NMAC's credit practices, which are
standard in the automobile finance industry, inadvertently have a disparate
impact against African-Americans.  NMAC vehemently denies this allegation and
says that an objective analysis of the data proves the plaintiffs wrong.
    After a critical review, NMAC has determined that the reports commissioned
by the plaintiffs used seriously flawed methodology to reach a contrived
conclusion:

    -- Manipulated Data.  Although NMAC gave plaintiffs data for more than
       1 million customers, they selected to analyze only 300,000 NMAC
       customers to yield an unfair and extremely small sample to manipulate
       the data and reach a conclusion that mischaracterizes the impact of
       race.
    -- Serious Error in Race Population Assumptions.  The plaintiffs' reports
       have so many errors in assumptions used that the conclusions allegedly
       reached are unreliable and wrong.  The biggest flaw in the Cohen report
       is that Cohen made state-by-state race populations assumptions by a
       convoluted extrapolation process rather than census data or other
       objective measures.  Instead, he used a very small amount of drivers
       license data, primarily from eleven Southern States, to estimate the
       race of NMAC's customers in all 50 States.  First, he matched that
       small proportion of drivers' license records to a small proportion of
       NMAC's account records using practices, including name-matching
       techniques, that are open to wide interpretation by the matcher.  Next,
       he took his matched accounts from the eleven Southern States and
       extrapolated them on to NMAC's customers in all 50 States.  These two
       steps created a huge margin of error in his report and render it
       unreliable.  For example, Cohen's methodology results in the conclusion
       that 32 % of Hawaii's adult population is African-American.  In
       reality, the 2000 Census shows that only about 1.8% of that State's
       adult population is African-American.  The Hawaii example is only one
       of many similar problems and errors found in Cohen's report.  Thus, all
       signs point to the conclusion Cohen's estimation of race in his report
       is flawed and largely incorrect.
    -- Ignoring Creditworthiness.  The single most important determinant of
       an auto loan interest rate is the customer's creditworthiness.  The
       reports improperly compare apples and oranges.  For example, customers
       with good credit and new car collateral are combined with customers
       with bad credit and used car collateral.  The reports thus completely
       fails to take into account customer creditworthiness as an important
       factor in the amount of interest paid by the customer, and conclude
       only that any difference in finance charges paid should be attributed
       to race.
    -- Ignoring Credit Terms.  The differences Cohen reported are not adjusted
       for either the term of the customer's retail installment contract
       (contract) or the amount financed.  It is simple logic that a longer
       term contract or higher amount financed will produce a larger dollar
       total finance charge that has nothing to do with race of the borrower.
    -- Destruction of Own Data.  Cohen has admitted he no longer has almost
       all of the data, work papers and statistical models he used to create
       his report and reach his suspect conclusions.  This had made it
       impossible for NMAC to replicate the work that he did and the results
       he arrived at.

    Background
    In Cason, plaintiffs allege that NMAC's business practices, standard in
the consumer credit industry, have disproportionately, but not intentionally,
caused NMAC's African American customers to pay more in finance charges than
NMAC's white customers.  Plaintiffs, using novel theories of law, claim these
practices are in violation of the Federal Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA).
In particular, plaintiffs' lawyers and experts, in the Court and in the media,
continue to falsely allege that NMAC is liable for purported racial
discrimination it knows nothing about, is forbidden by law from finding out,
and which NMAC's experts have now shown never occurred.
    In North America, Nissan's operations include automotive styling,
engineering, consumer and corporate financing, sales and marketing,
distribution and manufacturing.  More information on Nissan in North America
and the complete line of Nissan and Infiniti vehicles can be found online at
http://www.nissandriven.com or contact the corporate media line at (310) 771-5631.