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Former Nortel boss demands $12m in unpaid wedge

'Get in line' screams Canada

Former Nortel CEO Mike Zafirovski has gotten right up his fellow ex-Nortel staffers' collective nose by slapping in a claim for over $12m in unpaid salary and bonuses.

Zafirowski, who heroically failed in his effort to turn around the struggling networks vendor after joining in 2005, left the firm in August "with his head held high".

The one-time Motorola bigwig (whatever happened to those guys?) walked after the company decided to break itself up in May five months after seeking bankruptcy protection.

While Zaiforovski might have been expected to have put a few quid away for a rainy day, he's clearly not so comfortably padded that he can just write off "not less than $12,250,543.48" which is the amount he's claiming.

This includes base salary of $2.5m, bonuses of $3.6m and pro rata bonus for Q3 2009 of $200,543.48. Yes, that's where that odd 48 cents comes from.

Oh, he's also asking for health, life and accidental death and dismemberment insurance benefits of $50,000. Which is funny, as dismemberment is exactly what Nortel is going through right now.

Needless to say, the claim has gone down like a ton of bricks with the Canadian populace as they watch one of the country's great successes get pulled apart.

In Zafirovski's defence, it doesn't look as if his claim has any more chance of success than the other employees cast off by the firm. ®

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