Some former employees at Nortel Networks have said they will continue to fight to get all of the money owed to them. The image above shows the Ottawa headquarters of the telecoms company, which is in the midst of a liquidation. (Rebecca Zandbergen/CBC)

Former employees of Nortel Networks Corp. who have been fighting to get their severance and pensions from the disintegrating telecommunications company could soon receive some compensation thanks to an Ontario Superior Court ruling released Monday.

Justice Geoffrey Morawetz agreed to hear an appeal from Nortel retirees and former employees who have been left without severance and pensions as the company disintegrated and in a June 18 ruling requested a review of Nortel's financial situation.

The aim of the review, to be done by Ernst & Young, the company overseeing Nortel's court-supervised restructuring, is to determine "whether it is feasible to establish a process by which certain creditors, upon demonstrating hardship, could qualify for an unspecified partial distribution in advance of a general distribution to creditors,” Morawetz said.

The auditor is to report back on July 18.

"The timing of such distribution may be extremely important to a number of retirees and former employees who have been severely impacted by the cessation of payments," Morawetz wrote in his ruling.

"In my view, it would be both helpful and equitable if a partial distribution could be made to affected employees on a timely basis."

Nortel was delisted from the Toronto Stock Exchange permanently on Friday, with the farewell price of 18.5 cents per common share. In 2000, the share price for the company reached $124.50 and the company was valued at $400 billion.

Canada's former technology behemoth has sold off its wireless-network division, its most valuable asset, to Nokia Siemens and is trying to liquidate other parts of its business.

On Monday, Morawetz said he thought the Ottawa-based company could still have enough assets to pay some of its most needy creditors, based on the hardship those creditors had endured.

Under the payment system the judge is considering, some of Nortel's creditors who have endured hardship because of the company's demise, such as former employees, would be considered higher priority than others.

Paula Klein, who worked at Nortel for more than two decades and heads a group of former employees fighting to get their severance payments, said examples of hardship won't be hard to find among the Nortel workers who have lost out on the pay they were owed.

"People have been suffering hardship as a result of being laid off without severance, largely due to the fact that the economic situation is very bad and it's very challenging for people to find new jobs," she said.

"So, they are having to go severely into debt. There are at least a couple of cases of people I know who had to sell their house just to make ends meet."