RIM forced to throw in gloves for Nortel bidding war
by The PocketBerry Team
The soon to be gone telecom firm Nortel, which is auctioning its business this week has stated that Research In Motion was shut out of the bidding process for failing to sign non-disclosure agreements. Toronto-headquartered Nortel, which has been operating under bankruptcy protection since January after posting losses of $5 billion last year, is auctioning its various divisions to liquidate itself.
On Tuesday, RIM accused Nortel managers of shutting them out of the bidding process. RIM co-CEO Jim Balsillie said they are ready to offer $1.1 billion to Nortel for the wireless unit, much higher than Nokia-Siemens’s starting offer of $650 million and MatlinPatterson’s $725 million also. Denying the RIM allegations, Nortel said Wednesday that the RIM was shut out as it failed to meet court-determined requirements to participate in the auction.
In a statement, Nortel said RIM refused to sign non-disclosure agreements needed to protect the intellectual property of its wireless unit as bidders assessed its assets. Even as “other parties moved expeditiously to comply with the court approved procedures to become qualified bidders”, RIM submitted its letter asking to become a bidder only July 15, the statement said. Nortel said even though it has been trying to work with RIM on acceptable confidentiality terms, “RIM has refused, however, to comply with the court approved procedures”.
In addition, there is a huge speculation that RIM is not that serious about buying Nortel’s wireless business as they are only in it to have a closer look at Nortel’s new-generation technology.
-by Otoniel Bruno
