A Canadian judge yesterday blasted the lawyers involved in the fight over $7.3 billion raised in the sale of Nortel Networks Inc.'s businesses, calling their tactics "a huge waste of money" and their fees "shocking,” the Wall Street Journal reported today. Citing the interests of thousands of pensioners who lost benefits and pay in Nortel's 2009 collapse, Justice Frank Newbould threw out a series of motions arguing over what evidence is to be presented at a trial set to start on Monday. The trial will determine how to split the proceeds of the sale of Nortel's businesses among the fallen technology giant's creditors around the globe. At an expected cost of at least $1 million a day, the trial is set to run for six weeks in the U.S. and Canada, two of the jurisdictions where Nortel has launched insolvency proceedings. Attorneys have been preparing for the trial for a year, following failed efforts to reach a compromise that would have allowed Nortel Canada, Nortel U.S. and Nortel Europe to split up the money and pay off creditors without a court battle.
