US NRPC Participants Status Update
August 19, 2009
On August 4 2009 the Delaware Court issued Docket 1280 establishing September 30 2009as a deadline (bar date) for filing Proofs of Claim in the Nortel Networks bankruptcy proceedings.
Following this, the court ordered that bar coded proof of claim forms be sent to the unsecured creditors of record. By now, most of you will have received several of these proof of claim forms, some of which are bar coded and some not, some of which may have dollar amounts and some not.
For those who have NOT joined the NRPC (did not send in checks or requested a refund of their contributions after Martin & Millers fees had been deducted) it will be necessary to complete the forms and return them to the address indicated on the form so that they are received by the bar date.
For those who HAVE joined the NRPC, please read the section of this email entitled “US NRPC Claims Process” below.
Claims should be filed only for benefits which have been cancelled/suspended (such as non-qualified pensions and severance). You should not file a claim for a benefit if that benefit was paid in full as of the bankruptcy filing and has continued to be paid in full since the bankruptcy filing.
For the former employees who are still receiving these benefits: if/when Nortel cancels or modifies these benefits the court will set a subsequent bar date to file claims for such benefits.
US NRPC Process
As you will recall, Segal Co. http://www.segalco.com has been retained both in Canada and in the U.S. to calculate the claims of former employees. In Canada retirees have a seat on the Creditor’s Committee. Their participation on the Committee means Nortel will pay Segal Co. fees for the calculation and submission of all retiree claims.
The claims process in the U.S. differs from that process in Canada in 2 significant ways:
1. In the US Nortel is not required to pay our actuarial fees - we are required to pay Segal Co.’s fees ourselves. For those who have joined the NRPC and sent in their checks some of these funds will be used pay Segal Co.’s fees. Segal Co. will not calculate claims for those employees who have not sent in checks.
2. In the US Segal will obtain our claims information from Mercer, calculate our individual claims and send the resulting claims calculation to each USNRPC member for review. It will then be the responsibility of the individual USNRPC member to transfer the information to the bar coded forms they have received and send those forms to Epiq at the address provided on the claim form. This is a change from our original intent – which was that Segal Co. would file our claims directly. This change was made in light of the longer than expected period it has taken to facilitate the exchange of claims information with Nortel. We must eliminate some previously planned steps and make greater use of email rather than the postal service in order to take maximum advantage of the time available before the bar date.
In May, Nortel’s attorneys (Cleary, Gotlieb) had reached agreement in principle with the attorneys for the unsecured creditors (Akin Gump) that Nortel’s actuaries (Mercer) would provide Segal Co. (our actuaries) with the actuarial information required to calculate former employee claims.
In early July, Segal Co. approached Mercer to begin the data transfer process and were informed that Nortel had a concern about providing such information which is protected by privacy laws without the written consent of the former employees. For more than a month the USNRPC, Segal Co, Akin Gump and Cleary Gotlieb have been working to create an information release form which Nortel would find acceptable. On Friday August 14, agreement was reached. Unfortunately, as of today Cleary Gotlieb is not able to give us the name of the attorney or Nortel employee to whom we should send these release forms. Akin Gump is following up daily. In the meantime we can, however, make some progress.
The following information in the email applies to the release form which was sent to paying USNRPC members but is not shown here. If you wish to participate in this you need to join the NRPC by following the instructions on www.nnra.org. You will need to do this very quickly if you want to be included in the Segal calculations.
Information Release Forms:
Please complete, sign and return the attached Information Release Form. You may return it in one of two ways:
Either:
-Scan it, and reply to this USNRPC email with the scanned and completed form as an attachment.
Or
-Print out the attached release form, complete and sign it and fax it to Segal Co.
And
-Make a copy of the completed Infromation Release Form for your records
And
Save the signed original. When we receive the name of the Cleary Gotlieb attorney or Nortel employee to whom we should send the original signed release form we will send you another email update which will contain such contact information and a description of how the Segal Co. claims process will work.
The cutoff for return of the Information Release Forms is August 28, 2009. Please send in your Information Release Form as promptly as possible.
For former employees who have not yet joined the US NRPC but wish to have Segal Co. assistance in the calculation of claims it is not too late. We will be accepting new memberships until September 7, 2009. Please complete the membership form which can be downloaded at http://nnra.org and send it with a check for $250 to the address dshown on the web site
Former members who contributed $250 to Miller and Martin, requested and received their $175 refund, but now wish to rejoin can do so by sending a check for $175 before September 7, 2009.
As always, any monies remaining at the completion of the court case will be returned to members on a pro rata basis.
The NUSRPC is not offering legal advice but only information on the claims process that it believes is accurate as of the date provided. Nothing in this email is intended to be, nor should it be construed to be, legal advice.
NUSRPC (Nortel US Retirement Protection Committee)
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