A recent story in Canada’s Global and Mail story, “From $100 Emails to $300,000 for Photocopies and Meals, How Nortel Racked up $755 Million Tab,” reports that Nortel’s bondholders, pensioners and other creditors have engaged in an expensive fight over the $9 billion left over from the piecemeal sale of the company.  So far, the defunct former telecommunications giant has been charged a total of $755 million worldwide in “professional fees,” $630 million of it in Canada and the U.S., since it went into insolvency proceedings in both countries in 2009.

According to court documents, Nortel’s main U.S. firm, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton LLP, charged Nortel $1.25 million in legal fees and another $300,000 in expenses such as photocopying and meals in November 2012.  It also charged the company $40,000 to produce a 180-page document to submit to U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Delaware detailing all its charges and fees, declaring that it took 80 hours of staff work.

There is no question the massive, complex case requires top-flight legal talent.  Other huge bankruptcies have run up hundreds of millions of dollars in costs.  But some question the size of Nortel’s legal bill.  Diane Urquhart, a financial consultant working with a group of disabled former Nortel employees who has tallied up the professional fees, says the $755 million total is shocking.  In Canada alone, professional fees charged to Nortel amount to $244 million, but court documents here do not provide the details filed in U.S. courts.

CLICK HERE (pdf) to view part of Nortel’s legal bill