Nortel Networks Ltd. has filed for Chapter 11 protection in the Delaware bankruptcy court in an effort to sort out its financial woes.

In a statement emailed to Light Reading the company noted: "Nortel today announced that it is filing for creditor protection in the US, Canada and EMEA. The company intends to emerge from this process as a more focused, financially sound and competitive Company. This is a step towards a global reorganisation of Nortel and the Company acted now because we have sufficient liquidity to both run our operations and restructure our business."

The news, though shocking, will hardly come as a major surprise as all the signs were pointing toward such an eventuality. (See Nortel's Zero Hour?, Nortel's Not Bankrupt Yet, Crunch Time for Nortel, and Nortel Culls 1,300 Jobs, Loses $3.4B.)

And, again not surprisingly, the news hammered Nortel's stock in pre-market trading, sending it down $0.25, more than 77 percent, to just $0.05.

There will be more on this story as details are announced.

— Ray Le Maistre, International News Editor, Light Reading