Defunct telecoms equipment maker Nortel Networks Inc. received court approval yesterday for a $75 million deal it called a "significant milestone" in ending its five-year bankruptcy, Reuters reported yesterday. In return for the payment, insolvent Nortel affiliates in Europe will drop claims seeking more than $3 billion from Nortel's U.S. bankruptcy proceeding. Nortel's global business, once worth $250 billion with 93,000 employees, collapsed in January 2009. Its businesses and patents were quickly auctioned off, raising $7.5 billion. Yesterday's settlement resolves some of the biggest claims against the U.S. estate, including that it allegedly short-changed a pension in Britain. The agreement does not affect a looming fight over how to divide the billions in cash among insolvency and bankruptcy proceedings in different countries.
