Nortel Fires Seven More Execs

Updated from 8:47 a.m. EDT

Nortel (NT Quote) shares rose 8% early Thursday even as accounting issues continued to crop up at the telecom equipment giant.

Nortel filed some "estimated limited preliminary" numbers for previous quarters, helping to clear away some of its restatement-related overhang. But the company also slashed its workforce by 10% and fired seven more executives who might have been mixed up in a plot to inflate the company's earnings last year. That scandal is now the subject of a C$250 million lawsuit in Ontario.

The executive dismissals come amid a widening criminal investigation of accounting that allegedly enabled key executives to pocket millions of dollars in unearned incentive bonuses last year. Nortel previously cut loose its chief executive, chief financial officer and controller. ...