Nortel Retirees Hire Law Frm

Exact same thing they are doing in ontario.
250 dollar retaining fee.
The lawyers will take your money and you will end up with nothing but heartache, pain and an empty wallet when it all culminates in a year or more.
You can't get blood from a stone and Nortel will restructure/reposition themselves (providing they don't liquidate) so the creditors will come up empty handed more or less. 20 million for Alteon. Think about it.

“The NNPC needs 1,000 people to sign up and pay a retainer of $250 each to secure the services of Miller and Miller.”

Or $250,000 in total.
Man oh man. Why didn't I go to law school instead of engineering?

Sucks!!!

In Canada, Lawyers were asking $150.00 retaining fee. NNPC was meant only for non-unionized employee, I heard? LAWYERS naturally SMELLED the scents of MONEY out of NORTELS fiasco!!!

There are supposed to be some Lawyers in Ontario, for
individuals with low income, and the Lawyers charged nothing!!!
I meant,. poor people have access to lawyers without paying OBSCENE
fees!
Former employees who were members of the CAW and CEP need not
have to pay any RETAINING FEE!!!

does anyone know why this keeps popping up in my NT news search?
http://www.nbtalk.com/2009/03/03/a-nortel-sign-…

I wonder who are the Chairmen/women of this so called
Nortel Networks Protection Committee?? in the USA.
Seems to me, it was set up by some Lawyers to gain financially!

Just got a letter too from MERCER…. he he he!

The letter states ” You may be able to make a claim for the amounts owing
to you under these unregistered plans. Like the RAP- Retirement Allowance
Plan. In Canada, until a claims process is approved by the court, there is
no process through which to file your claim.”

Noticed the wording? “You may be able to…” Does not mean same as
” You can…”

I have this notion of a wish… If I could , take them to the Supreme Court of
Canada.. that their filing of Bankruptcy Protection was “un-Constitutional”.
Under the 'LEGAL RIGHTS” … “No individual can be DEPRIVED of……”
in this case NORTEL was DEPRIVING me, or all the retirees, of some
'monetary payments' in exchaged for so many years of services to the company!

The Constitution is the Highest Law of the land and it should over rule
any Federal or Provincial statute .

Perhaps what former Nortel retirees and former employees need is a CONSTITUTIONAL Lawyer!!! I wonder how much they charged?

Anyone remembers that RED ROSE tea bag tea commercial?
“ONLY IN CANADA? PITY?” ( pronounced as.. PITEY?) he he he!

Guys (and gals), get a grip and start thinking about living in the real world.
This might help you: Hanging On, or How to Get Through a Depression and Enjoy Life
http://www.oftwominds.com/journal09/MB-depressi…

I thought the proceeds of crime, considering the largest fraud settlement in Canada, would take a precedent over all other liabilities by law. Instead, a single party as their largest shareholder left the by far greater number of parties at the mercy of Nortel's ultimatum.

Whoever held the largest number of shares /money and not the largest number of parties did the talking. They settled claim so as to not cripple the company by harletting principle so everyone got something than nothing. However, further revisions and contradictions resulted in the multiply larger shares portion of this ultimatum settlement to dramatically decline with revisions and contradictions to bankruptcy.

Great legal, political, regulatory, and financial powers for this multi billion dollar entity in the private sector have continued their support. Allowed to operate under safe harbor's benefit of the doubt with many there while maintaining exorbitant pay practices. Look at leniency provided by the EDC, OSC, TSX … even the Department of Justice bears greater teeth than our RCMP. Comparing our regulatory SEC vs OSC or TSX vs, NYSE for that matter.

I question if there would have been any settlement at all had the proceedings taken place only in Canada. In able for Nortel and even Bill Dunn to have used the exact argument to dismiss claims against them on jurisdictional grounds, it should come as no surprise that the quality of fairness differs in Canada vs. the U.S.

Are the employees even setting up a claim in Canada yet?

What is fair and outcome is also sometimes balanced by the David vs. Golliath legal might. The greater mental imagination in objectivity can often prevail to cast a benefit of doubt =) However, a voice in court is better than than no voice I'd guess. Not that it can or would change who stands in line to get paid first in bankruptcy law, without a precedent being set which is unlikely.

Sure things aren't always fair, let alone in Nortel's case where shareholders and employees come second as Nortel takes advantage to adhere to the guidelines and loopholes within the legal confines of the law.

Today Nortel selectively announces numbers without analyst questions, or shareholders questions, gags employees from speaking with the media, takes out $100M lawsuit insurance as it trades options for cash again or applies for performace incentives to improvement while neglecting viability and very purpose of this exercise, delaying creditors with yet another plan to restructure with less cash and liability that has proven a death spiral let alone now.

Fairness has a whole new meaning with enough legal power to define and defy what is truly legally from its initial intent of why the law was written to begin with.

Did any even brave a strike anywhere yet while there was something to negotiate?

Dare I ramble how they doubled postage rates due to no protest many years ago, or the banks/gov't/ins. cos. record profit vs. people's record debt/low savings turned to feeding who they drained with nothing left to leach to lower interest rates and energy prices, refueling a cycle of Keynesian theory that works less times than it does…

Nortel is a regression of robber barons than any progression setting lousy precedents for others to follow heading into this economy while nailing success and philanthropy like RIM. Heck I can go on forever… yesteryear's integrity has been buried years ago, even our censorship neglects guns and a sewer mouths on television as we catalyze diversity and macroambiguities in our struggle to survive during this primative era. =)

Just strike to operate and possibly restructure under ultimatum, throw them the other shoe =) What do you have to lose? Think about it. Like trenches that will be over run anyways, may as well get out there shoot…

Any of the sheeple strike yesterday? Didn't think so… I am disappointed =)

Damn nice of them to want $250 for something you can do for free and are provided the paperwork to do it with.

Yes, misleading with intent to gain is fraud!
I call it lies for theft.
Is there such a thing as legal fraud to defy its very definition?

Nortel claims it is victim like other IT and telecom companies and how its largest assets removed from books they sought to clean so long are “real” assets they can use against future earnings… What earnings, what asset , are the SEC monitored books even clean?

How are they like other companies?! Do other companies gag their shareholders, analysts, and employees who are told to file creditor claims for lost severance.after bankruptcy and delisting? Is half their their cash disproportionately locked up off shore they claim exchange rate profits with when they do most business in North America. Are others increasing lawsuit insurance while trading losing options gamble to cash.

They are axe-cutting and liquidating declining business with all hands on the pie, legally, let alone as promote criminally a charged green pal to their key area and to their employees horror. How junior can they get let alone claim they could run a larger company? What larger.

Even to stall for a plan today, with lower sales comes and lower expenses, sure, especially while keeping creditors at bay …but this only results in a lower profits given the smaller pie in revenues

Their performance incentives to losing viability/sustainability on higher margins with these lower revenues are a joke

How much profit on these lower sales will appease their creditors they increasingly ultimatum to take a new stake in restructuring as they burn “available cash” …a new Nortel gamble with less cash and debt, 50% bone us more on restructuring approval

Meanwhile fraud trials loom for so few fall guys for this level of mass orchestration within their “crazy levels” and so many still there as they keep fraud bonuses. They use to dilute 100M shares /yr. “to keep good people”. Nortel's reluctance to chase past officers is questionable as no further inquiry to post settlement revisions that doubled estimates. Did they see bonus on the mark-to-market profits and tanked shares?

Frank is suing for wrongful dismissal too and Owens was one of the highest ranking military officials to hide behind after the largest fraud in Canada, ex-finance minister still sits on Nortanic's board where board members sat on the voting audit committee to approve lotteries sized pay practices and management severances.

It's all about money isn't it… theirs money that is, others can fill in a creditors claim… they get they KEIP for SLT

I can go on rambling forever in what Kool Aid advocates call “rants” =)

Thank god for Deskjockey's comic relief through his wonderful videos =)

now your speaking my language…great post.

This outlines the most blatant hypocrisy of the executive management. Preaching to people on how to save pennies and dimes for the good of Nortel while they fly around on private jets and conspire to dole out undeserved bonuses to themselves at the expense of the rank and file employees who built this company.

They have no shame.

Wow. That's very sad.

Geez – don't get me going……. (too late)

I found it really funny when someone suggested in January that we should not call NT-4Help if we had a computer or network issue. I think I even saw an executive commend the person that thought that up for what a great idea to save some company money.

So if I have this right, they want a PLM or Senior Engineer earning 100K that should be concentrating on their own product deliverables to spend a morning or day to solve a computer issue instead of the tech support person that probably knows how to solve it in 15 minutes. Good use of skillsets.

Eight years ago we had 2 local Nortel computer support folk at our location that knew everyone and knew the local computer and LAN problems. So then they get the brilliant idea to outsource the function to CSC at an obscene contract price. The guys that knew what they were doing get outsourced to CSC. So then CSC decides to save some money (their money) and they get rid of the guys that know what they are doing and try to manage the site remotely. After that clusterf**k, Nortel finally decides to partially in-source re-outsource the function back from CSC, but still try to manage all the tech support function remotely thru NT-4Help.

So now the poor tech support guy sitting in some other part of the world has to try to remotely diagnose your computer/lan problem. That is after you raise a ticket and they finally get to you. I'm not knocking the guy on the phone, he is just trying to do his job. It is just hilarious that we do this in the name of saving money – in the end it is costing the company more money.

But wait – now they don't even want me to call that guy because they cost too much. Guess we should hire back the 2 guys that knew what they were doing eight years ago.

While I'm at it – One other thing that I just love is the local computer monitor situation. Many of the CRT monitors are burnt or failing as they are over 8 years old. When your monitor fails you go to the 8 year old bone yard and try to find one that is marginally better than the one that just smoked out on your desk. Most of them are burnt in with that funky Nortel screen saver they were giving out a few years ago – now that was a brilliant move.

S/W designers who work 4-6 hours a day at a monitor are working on burned-in fuzzy CRTs. Many of them are bringing in their own LCD monitors. So we can pay them good $$ and they are highly skilled, but can't provide even the basic tools to do the job. Wonder what kind of monitor the new labs in China have ?

There I'm done

Unfortunately he is not the first to commit suicide during Nortel's troubles. However, I would point out that suicide is usually a result of a mental illness. Factors such as losing a job, financial problems, marital problems may contribute to a suicide, but the root cause is the mental illness. It is important for people to treat mental illness like any other sickness and get treatment.

Does anyone who the insurance company is that covers the liability of the Directors and officers at Nortel? Also is the level of Nortel self insured or their deductable?

Perhaps this wish can be translated to action! It is very bizarre that Canada has provincial employment laws that specifically state that insolvency is not an exception even though this is clearly not the case. The “explanation” is that CCAA is a Federal act and supersedes provincial laws. Why not take this to the Supreme Court of Canada? Perhaps lawyers would be motivated based on the notoriety of the case and getting a chance to make legal history, in addition to contingency fees? I previously thought that contingency fees were not allowed in Canada, but this is not true, apparently they are allowed except for criminal and family law cases.