With three former Nortel executives standing trial on charges they falsified the company's financial records, another ex-exec says whatever happens in court can't compensate for the hardships caused by the once-mighty tech company's insolvency.
Nortel retiree representative Anne Clark-Stewart says that, just like her, the lives of some 22,000 pensioners and former employees are in "financial disarray."
In an interview on CTV's Canada AM Tuesday, the Nortel Retirees and Former Employees Protection Canada representative said they've all been deeply affected by the company's pension fund deficit.
According to the last assessment in 2009, Clark-Stewart said Nortel's pension fund was short $1.2 billion.
"We've lost anywhere from 45 to 30 per cent of our pensions, depending on where we worked in Canada. We've lost all of our medical benefits. We've lost our life insurance. And at our stage of life a lot of us have health issues where we can't replace those," she said.
The average Nortel pensioner is now in her mid-70s.
In that context, the former Nortel executive said pension and benefit cuts have been particularly hard to cope with.
"I've moved twice in the last four years. Downsized each time. Can no longer afford to own a home, which I've always done," she said, lamenting that she is now in a rented condo.
But, she added, "Lots of people though are in a worse position than I am."
And even though Clark-Stewart says pensioners are owed too much to ever reasonably expect to see compensation, she says she's not bitter.
"I'm angry. But bitter, I don't know. I'm not a bitter person," she said.
At one time, Nortel rode the technology boom to become Canada's most valuable company.
Its stock faded from a peak of $124.50 per share in 2000, however, eventually forcing the company to seek court protection from its creditors in 2009.
The company's stock has since been delisted.
Three former executives were in a Toronto court Monday, for the start of an anticipated 6-month trial on charges they worked together to falsify financial reports that made the company appear more profitable than it actually was.
According to the Crown, the alleged fraud amounted to errors totalling "over half a billion Canadian dollars" in the first and second quarters of 2003.
"The only real question is, did you know it at the time?" Crown attorney Robert Hubbard asked in court Monday, arguing that the alleged irregular accounting kept the accused in line for performance-related bonuses.
Former chief executive Frank Dunn, former chief financial officer Douglas Beatty and former corporate controller Michael Gollogly, all of whom were dismissed from Nortel in 2004, entered pleas of not guilty.
Clark is willing to reserve judgment on the guilt or innocence of the accused, but doesn't expect much to change for the former employees she represents -- no matter what happens in court.
"The pensioners are owed so much money out of this insolvency with Nortel that there's no way that whatever happens, if they are proved guilty, will compensate for the deficit in our pension fund," she said.
