United States

Nortel Networks Corp said it received U.S. and Canadian court approval for the sale of its carrier Voice over Internet Protocol and application solutions business to Genband Inc for about $182 million, Reuters reported. The company received orders from the United States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Delaware and the Ontario Superior Court of Justice approving the asset sale agreement with Genband, Nortel said in a statement.

Courts in Canada and the United States have rebuffed a British pension regulator's attempt to drag Nortel Networks Corp. into a separate legal battle in the United Kingdom over a multibillion-dollar claim, a Nortel lawyer said, allowing the company to focus on the liquidation of its global assets, The Globe and Mail reported. The British Pensions Regulator had been trying to argue a $3.4-billion claim on behalf of Nortel's 40,000-plus pensioners in the U.K., where Nortel's collapse triggered a pension crisis.

For the second time in less than five weeks, China’s central bank has moved to limit lending to consumers and businesses by ordering big commercial banks to park a larger share of their deposits at the central bank, The New York Times reported. The step, announced late Friday, came earlier than most economists had expected and was aimed at forestalling a rekindling of inflation by controlling a rapid expansion in bank loans. Families, real estate developers and industrial companies have been borrowing heavily and have started paying more for everything from food to apartments.

Ericsson said it would cut 1,500 jobs as part of its broad restructuring plan. In addition, the vendor's profit plunged 92 percent in the fourth quarter, hit by higher restructuring costs and weaker sales, FierceWireless reported. The Swedish company reported net profit of $43.4 million in the quarter, down from $539.4 million in the year-ago quarter. Sales slumped 13 percent to $8.08 billion, down from $9.29 billion in the fourth quarter last year. Networks sales fell 16 percent in the quarter and professional services sales were flat year-over-year.

When it comes to rescuing banks, the Swedes are earning a reputation as trendsetters. First they set a standard for recovering from disaster; now they want to export their idea for how to pay for it, The New York Times reported. The country went through its own crippling banking crisis during the early 1990s, after the bursting of a domestic credit bubble. It rebounded relatively smoothly through an aggressive bailout policy built around nationalization and carving the troubled assets of banks off into a so-called bad bank.

When Nortel Networks Corp. sought court protection from its creditors last January, its chief executive officer, Mike Zafirovski, promised creditors and employees that the telecommunications company would stanch its debt wounds and re-emerge in fighting form, The Globe and Mail reported in an analysis. But the pledge, like Mr. Zafirovski, was gone by summer.

A delegation from the Swedish government will meet with General Motors next week in the United States to discuss the future of loss-making car unit Saab, Sweden's national news agency said on Tuesday. Representatives from Sweden's finance and industry ministries will meet in Detroit with Saab parent GM and Ford, currently in the process of selling its Swedish car unit Volvo Cars. "As we understand it, GM has not closed the door to a sale (of Saab), even if the official line is a wind-down," state secretary Joran Hagglund said.

Canada's industry minister approved Ciena Corp's $769 million bid for a unit of bankrupt Nortel Networks Inc. and said on Tuesday the deal was likely to be of net benefit for Canada, Reuters reported. "This investment will maintain jobs, R&D activity and corporate leadership in Canada, Industry Minister Tony Clement said in a late night statement that also noted Ciena's promise to invest in Canada.

Foreign investors were a major force in New York’s real estate boom of the last decade, with families and companies from Dubai to Australia swallowing weekend apartments and Midtown office towers. In 2007, the roster of international investors came to include a British firm, Dawnay Day, whose executives had a splashy reputation for spending millions on fine art and yachts, The New York Times reported. The efforts [to regentrify East Harlem neighborhoods], though, didn’t get far before the recession spread across the globe and Dawnay Day went bust.

The International Banking Corp., a Bahrain-based provider of commercial loans, filed a Chapter 15 bankruptcy petition, seeking protection from U.S. creditors, The China Post reported. TIBC had assets of US$4 billion and liabilities of US$2.6 billion as of July 31, according to documents filed in Manhattan court Monday. TIBC is under administration proceedings in Bahrain, with Trowers & Hamlins Services Ltd. acting as administrator, and Zolfo Cooper hired for restructuring work.