Methinks the chief culprit in the NORTEL debacle is Roth who went on an acquisition binge that did not pay off - while the Board was asleep ..... On the other hand executives like Dunn who came after were the victims of prior financial misjudgements that they could do nothing about.

More interesting: Why was there no Canadian government intervention ( that I know about ) to save the company with a "bail out " as per the Big 3 automotive example. These latter companies were American owned branch plants in Canada, had very little if any R&D here, merely routine assembly line operations. NORTEL on the other hand was a Canadian high tech icon whoes IP was valued higher than its operating infrastructure.  Yet Ottawa fell all over themselves with a financial package to keep Oshawa going while ignoring our world class high tech R&D success. Now we are groping in the industrial wilderness for high tech "jobs" that might have been easily saved. Our media silence on this issue is troubling ....