"If we are not allowed to transfer, we will have a factory but no business. And if we don't have a business, we can't manufacture anything in the factory. And that would be detrimental to our employees and we care for them," he said.
No formal talks are underway with Alcatel-Lucent. Though one of the people close to the matter said Nokia held "on again, off again" discussions about buying Alcatel's wireless business as recently as late 2012 and that the two companies could still come back to the table.
The award - revealed in proxy materials for Nokia's extraordinary general meeting to be held on November 19 to approve the sale of its mobile phone business to Microsoft - is likely to stoke anger over the deal.
Microsoft is spending over $7 billion to acquire Nokia's handset business, while at $130 billion, Vodafone's exit from Verizon Telecom makes it the world's third-largest deal in the space.