The Times today points out that Nortel is/was one of the largest corporate sponsors of the London Olympics, to the tune of £58 million cash (IIRC) plus other "in kind" support (telecoms kit).

@AC 14:47

I think we are all resigned to the fact that the 2012 Olympics are going to be a huge embarrassment. Losing one sponsor is not going to make it any more pants than it's going to be anyway.

"The company said yesterday that its US and Canadian businesses were seeking Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection."

Not to put too fine a point on it, but "Chapter 11" is purely an instrument of the USA. Canadian bankruptcy applies quite a different process. Having never been bankrupt in either of those sovereign nations I can't clearly describe those differences. But I do know they are different.

As an ex-employee (and pensioner) of Nortel I find it so sad that the company has got into this mess. When I worked for them (we were taken over) there were a predominance of US rather than Canadian senior execs who managed by Powerpoint. I taught for a year their Quality Improvement programme only to find that many (not all) of the guys at the top couldn't care about it - several joined British Gas/AA after leaving Nortel curiously . Great products, some amazingly clever staff - Harlow, the inventors of fibre optics in STC days had more PhDs than Cambridge University it was claimed - but when I worked there the awful management laid the foundations for what the current management has inherited.