Sunday, February 26, 2012

Keeping tabs on the legal costs

I looked at the Epic Systems record of US court proceeding to see if there is any progress whatsoever and as usual the majority of the docket record is the compensation to law firms and executives. Is anyone keeping tabs on that? Perhaps in Canada the Monitor should be able to tell us what the tab is so far for these legal beagles. I woner if anyone is looking at it and generating a report for the US and other countries. These people are eating into our assets and enjoying the free ride. Surely there should be public disclosure of the money being funneled to these firms? Also are there any results achieved by this amount of legal attention? I sure don't see any.

Tom

Friday, February 24, 2012

Time drags on

It seems like forever since Nortel declared bankruptcy. Since then thousands of us have felt the pain of lost pensions and benefits and yet the case drags on with only the lawyers benefiting.

What a miserable 3 years it has been.

Loss of non qualified pensions.
Loss of benefits.
Shameful rejection of the disabled employees.
Cuts in pensions.
Continuous anxiety and depression over the loss of income.

Why arent we getting some movement on the mediation and distribution of the assets?

We are all getting older and some have already lost the opportunity to enjoy any payout from this despicable situation.

Time for the judges and lawyers to get their act together and complete this so we can move on with our lives.

Tom

Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Morneau Shepell announces Canadian Pension Cuts

The administrator of the Nortel Canada Pension plan published their estimates for reduction of the plan payments on their web site yesterday. You can find the details by using the link in the right hand column to access their site.

Basically the reductions for the non-negotiated plan members will be 30% for those who have Ontario pensions and service and 41% for those who have pensions generated by service in other provinces. That means only up to 70% and 59% of the benefit will be paid on an interim basis. I say up to because there will be an addition reduction of up to 7% to account for the fact that pensions have been paid at 100% since October 2010 and they should have been paid at a lower amount. The reduction will be based on age and the amounts paid with a cap of 7%. So people with Ontario service may only get 63% and people with pensions based in other Provinces may get 52%.

The negotiated plan has slightly different figures. The corresponding reduced pension numbers are 75% and 57%.

In Ontario there is some pension protection and the PBGF will be making up the first $1000 per month of pension for people whose pension was from Ontario. This may help raise the percentage above the 70% quoted.

People with split service will see a reduction reflecting the proportion of their service from Ontario and well as other provinces.

The reductions will occur on the August 25th 2011 payment.

Each pensioner will receive an individual letter from Morneau Shepell and there will be a webinar on July 22nd 2011 from 1:00-3:00 PM to explain the reductions


You can register for that webinar on the administrator site. (See right hand column).

You can also call Morneau Shepell at 1-877-392-2073 for the negotiated plan details, and 1-877-392-2074 for the managerial and non-negotiated plan detail.