After the arrest last year of its chairman, Carlos Ghosn, Nissan has made a very public accounting of its management failures, from a lack of strong internal checks and balances to board meetings that lasted only 20 minutes.

That frankness may play well with the Japanese public and with prosecutors, who have charged the company and Mr. Ghosn with financial wrongdoing. But Nissan’s disclosure of its problems at the top could cost it dearly, and deliver a potential gold mine for the lawyers who squeeze multimillion-dollar settlements out of corporations accused of wrongdoing.

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Nissan is not alone in being sued by investors who have lost money. Settlements over such accusations are fairly common in the United States, although they rarely result in large judgments or payouts, according to data collected by the Securities Class Action Clearinghouse at Stanford Law School. Between 1996 and 2017, around 1,700 suits were settled, for a median payout of just $8.6 million.