“We felt like we were snookered,” BlackBerry President & co-CEO Mike Lazaridis on Friday told a parliamentary committee of Nortel’s refusal to let his company bid for its wireless business July 28.

Sweden’s Ericsson won the auction in New York with its $1.13 billion bid. The 127-year-old Toronto-based Nortel, which has been a global name in telecom equipment, is liquidating itself to pay creditors after suffering losses of $5 billion last year. But the BlackBerry maker, which was shut out of bidding for refusing to sign non-disclosure agreements, sought government intervention to stop transfer of crucial technology to a foreign company.