More Drama at Nortel
It's never easy for Nortel. Just when you thought it had made a positive and uncontroversial move by hiring Mike Zafirovski as CEO, it runs into a huge snag: a lawsuit filed by Motorola Inc.,
which contends its ex-president and COO is breaching several
agreements. Motorola wants to stop Zafirovski from working at Nortel
for
two years just to make sure he doesn't reveal any of Motorola's
technology secrets. Of course, this could be nothing more than a
nuisance
suit to
embarrass Nortel but, nevertheless, it is the last thing the telecom
equipment maker needed as it struggles to regain its credibility. Now,
if I was a betting man,
I suspect
this “problem” will be resolved fairly soon after Zafirovski, Motorola
and
Nortel come to some kind of agreement. It seems strange an agreement
wouldn't have been reached before Zafirovski took the job. And it seems
somewhat odd, if not unfair,
Motorola
wouldn't let Zafirovski take on his next assignment given he stuck
around for a year after losing the the battle
to become Motorola's CEO to Ed Zander. As well, Zafirovski left
Motorola in January so it's nearly two
years since his future - or lack thereof - was cast in stone. Given
Nortel CEO Bill Owens - I assume he's still CEO until Zafirovski comes
on board? - was clearly not happy about being pushed into “retirement”,
I wonder if the ex-U.S. Admiral is taking some perverse pleasure in
Nortel's latest legal woes. While Owens had his shortcomings, he was
squeaky
clean! If you look at Nortel shares today, the lack of movement
suggests investors are never surprised at any new developments in “As
the Nortel Turns”.
