国际英语新闻：Canada's Nortel, under bankruptcy protection, permitted to pay bonuses to executives

OTTAWA, March 20 (Xinhua) -- Courts in Canada and the United States on Friday gave Nortel Networks permission to pay retention bonus money to eight senior executives while the company restructures under creditor protection.

    Reports indicated the eight executives, three of them in Canada and five in the United States, could receive up to 7.3 million U.S. dollars in bonus money.

    The Toronto-headquartered company, which filed for bankruptcy protection in January, says the payouts are necessary to boost flagging morale at the floundering company.

    The news comes as insurance giant American International Group faces tough criticism in the United States over its plan to pay bonuses to top executives, after accepting billions in bailout money from Washington.

    The controversial decision raised the ire of the Canadian public, who vented out their opposition in their online comments on related news stories.

    Diane Urquhart, an independent financial analyst, said the Nortel plan will eventually cost Canadian taxpayers, although the effect is less obvious.

    Lawyers representing some of the 1,000 workers who were denied severance pay after the company went into creditor protection in January objected Friday to payment of the bonuses to the eight.

    Other lawyers involved have agreed with that viewpoint, or asked that the incentive payments will actually reward employees, not just keep them from leaving during uncertain times.

    Meanwhile, Nortel's creditors wanted the high-paid executives excluded from the bonus plan and called for an earnings outlook for 2009.

    A Nortel spokesman said Friday that bonuses are required to help keep staff from defecting while the company is restructuring. The bonuses for the executives are tied to meeting goals such as cost-cutting.

    "First of all, it is important to note that the vast majority of employees at all levels are already on a quarterly incentive plan aligned to the short-term goals of company," said Nortel spokesman Mohammed Nakhooda.

    "Of those employees, we have identified a few hundred additional individuals to be part of a separate incentive program [including some executives] to ensure that key employees with specific skills and experience remain in place as we deliver on the restructuring," he said in an email.