Employees of Nortel, including the many who used to work for the firm, will be watching a court case about to start in Canada later this week.
The UK Pensions Regulator is attempting to get its hands on the worldwide assets of the stricken telecoms company in order to plug the enormous shortfall in the firm's UK pension fund.
The action is being taken in Canada because that is where Nortel, which filed for bankruptcy protection this time last year, has its headquarters.
According to a report in the Financial Times, business services firm Ernst and Young, which now looks after Nortel, is attempting to block the regulator's action.
The move is apparently being taken by its Canadian arm.
The UK arm of Ernst and Young, which acts as administrators of the company here, has issued the following statement.
"In light of the Pensions Regulator claim against Nortel Networks Corporation and other Nortel group companies, the Joint Administrators of Nortel Networks UK Ltd fully expected the Pensions Regulator to consider all avenues to defray the shortfall suffered by the defined benefit pension scheme, and regard this claim to the wider Group as to be expected in a case of this magnitude."
If the pensions regulator's attempt fails, Nortel workers will have to rely on the Pensions Protection Fund, the Government appointed body.
If that happens, they will only get a proportion of the pension payments they were expecting.
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