There is no evidence of fraud in Nortel trail, says lawyer

There is no evidence of fraud in Nortel trail, says lawyerA lawyer representing a senior executive has said that there is no evidence that a fraud was committed at Nortel Networks Corp.

Lawyer David Porter said that this indicates that the three senior executives did not commit any fraud while making the financial statements of the company. "There is not a single instance of evidence to suggest the existence of a fraud in this case," the lawyer argued in the final argument of the trail.

Mr. Porter is representing former Nortel chief executive officer Frank Dunn but he gave his final argument on the behalf of all the three executives accused of manipulating Nortel's financial reserves in 2002 and 2003. The fraud was reportedly committed to meet profit targets and earn personal bonus.

Justice Frank Marrocco of the Ontario Superior Court heard that the no witnesses indicated that they were either instructed to carry out anything wrong or hide any sort of information from the company's auditor, Deloitte & Touche.

Mr. Porter presented evidence that the senior executives are innocent. He said that they asked the audit committee of Nortel's board about the decisions to release accounting reserves.