Nortel Issued Temporary Cease-Trade Order

TORONTO -- Nortel* Networks Corporation (NNC) (OTCBB:NRTLQ) and Nortel Networks Limited (NNL) announced today that, consistent with their announcement of August 9, 2012, NNC and NNL did not file their respective unaudited financial statements and related disclosure filings for the third quarter of 2012 by the required filing deadlines under applicable securities laws as a result the determination of the court-appointed monitor in their Canadian creditor protection proceedings that future periodic reporting by both companies could no longer be justified and would be discontinued, effective as of the filing deadlines for their 2012 third quarter financial results.

As a result of the Canadian filing defaults, a temporary cease trade order ("CTO") was issued on December 12, 2012 by Authorité Des Marchés Financiers (the "AMF"). The CTO is substantially similar to the cease trade order issued by the Ontario Securities Commission on December 11, 2012. The CTO prohibits all trading in securities of both NNC and NNL, effective immediately, other than for: (i) trades made for nominal consideration for the purpose of permitting a security holder to crystallize a tax loss (a "tax loss trade"); or (ii) trades in notes of either NNC or NNL to an entity that qualifies as an "accredited investor" as that term is defined under applicable Canadian securities laws (an "accredited investor trade"). The aforementioned exceptions are subject to the further qualifications that: (1) in the case of a tax loss trade, a copy of the CTO is provided to the purchaser and the seller receives a written acknowledgement from the purchaser that the securities acquired remain subject to the CTO; and (2) in the case of an accredited investor trade in notes of NNC or NNL, the purchaser will be deemed (by reason of the issuance of this news release and the posting of the CTO on the Restructuring Document Centre of Ernst & Young Inc., as monitor, at http://documentcentre.eycan.com/Pages/Main.aspx?SID=89&Redirect=1) to have received notification of the terms of the CTO and deemed to have acknowledged to the seller that the notes acquired remain subject to the CTO. The full text of the CTO accompanies this news release marked as Annex A.

The temporary CTO is scheduled to expire 15 days from the date of its issue unless extended by the AMF. NNC and NNL understand that the AMF will convene a hearing before the expiration date of the CTO for the purpose of making the CTO permanent.

Nortel Networks Ltd.