Nortel, GENBAND come to blows over CVAS deal

It looks like GENBAND is getting something else with its purchase of Nortel's carrier Voice over Internet Protocol and application solutions (CVAS): a lawsuit.

Nortel claimed that GENBAND tried to "drastically and improperly" lower the price it would pay for the CVAS unit last December, reports Reuters.

According to a lawsuit filed this week, Nortel alleges that GENBAND tried to lower the $179.5 million price for the CVAS unit to $142.9 million by leveraging elements in purchase agreement.

Nortel said that this "is a disagreement about the clear terms of the sale agreement--and, in particular, Genband's attempt to disregard those clear terms."

GENBAND acknowledged in a von|xchange article that there is a disagreement between the two companies and that GENBAND tried to "settle the dispute with Nortel but that Nortel refuses to go to arbitration, as required in the companies' contract."

But GENBAND is not the only company facing Nortel's wrath. Nortel said that Nokia Siemens Networks, whose bid for Nortel's Metro Ethernet Networks and optical division was trumped by Ciena, violated a purchase and license agreement.

Since much of the 15-page lawsuit was confidential, it was hard to tell how much Nortel was seeking in damages from NSN.   

For more:
- Reuters has this article

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