Research In Motion (RIM) continues to fight against the sale of Nortel’s CDMA/LTE assets to Ericsson three weeks after the final auction.
Although the company could not be immediately reached for comment, the Canadian Press reported that RIM had said Canadian citizens “want and expect” the federal government to put a halt to the $1.13 billion deal.
The statement came after the deadline for appeals to challenge the deal passed on Wednesday, saying “Industry Minister (Tony) Clement must examine very carefully how the Investment Canada Act applies to the proposed Nortel-Ericsson transaction.”
RIM further said it wanted to help negotiate a deal between itself and Nortel “to find a solution in the interests of all parties.” It is widely believed that RIM wanted to cherry-pick key parts of Nortel’s wireless intellectual property rights. RIM said it offered to pay $1.1 billion for specific parts of Nortel’s CDMA/LTE assets.
The BlackBerry maker has issued a slew of complaints about the Nortel auction process, saying it was purposely shut out by Nortel. The company claims it had a handshake agreement to buy a coveted chunk of the business when the agreement was suddenly scuttled.
Nortel maintains that it held to the court-approved auction process. Courts in both Canada and the United States oversaw the sale process, found it was properly followed and approved the sale.
Filed Under: Infrastructure