On January 14 2009 Nortel, one of the world’s largest manufacturers of telecommunications equipment, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in the US, Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA) creditor protection in Canada and 19 of its European subsidiaries were placed into administration in the UK under the European Insolvency Regulations. The UK administration alone was the largest and most complex administration filing ever undertaken under those Regulations.
Since those filings were made, a key focus for Nortel, its subsidiaries and Ernst & Young, as administrators of the 19 European subsidiaries, has been to try to realise value by disposing of the principal businesses. Nortel has sold its CDMA business to Ericsson for $1.13 billion and its Enterprise Solutions business to Avaya for $915 million, as well as executing conditional agreements for the sale of its Metro Ethernet business to Ciena for $769 million, its GSM/GSMR business to Ericsson...