The hedge fund billionaire Philip A. Falcone is in a litigious mood.
Just three days after suing the satellite television mogul Charles W. Ergen and another hedge fund in a last-ditch attempt to maintain control of LightSquared, the bankrupt wireless broadband company he owns, Mr. Falcone has turned his focus on the GPS industry.
On Friday, Mr. Falcone’s hedge fund, Harbinger Capital, and its subsidiaries sued Deere & Company, Garmin International and Trimble Navigation, along with two GPS industry lobby groups, accusing them of preventing LightSquared from operating a key 4G network.
The case, filed in the Federal District Court for the Southern District of New York, is littered with technical jargon and is the latest in a series of lawsuits that has given Mr. Falcone a reputation as a tycoon itching for a fight as he struggles to maintain control of LightSquared.
During a pretrial meeting on Thursday for Harbinger’s complaint against Mr. Ergen, which was filed in bankruptcy court, Judge Shelley C. Chapman said she was “struggling with parsing this through†as a row of lawyers representing a long list of plaintiffs stood before her.
In that case, Mr. Falcone contends that Mr. Ergen, the chairman of both Dish and EchoStar, and the hedge fund Sound Point surreptitiously acquired LightSquared’s debt to try to seize control of the company. The suit was prompted in part by a $2.2 billion bid for LightSquared’s assets from L-Band Acquisition, a subsidiary of Dish, which is named as a defendant.
While the lawsuit on Friday is not directly related, the outcome will help determine LightSquared’s fate. The company has been trying to build a broadband network to compete with the likes of AT&T and Verizon, but its plans were thwarted in February 2012 when the Federal Communications Commission rejected a license it needed to begin operating the network.
The suit turns on the contention that Deere, Garmin and Trimble Navigation did not disclose problems with their own GPS equipment and instead blamed LightSquared for interfering with their GPS systems during a crucial testing period.
LightSquared has been battling the GPS industry, which argues that LightSquared’s network transmitters would interfere with other GPS equipment using the same band of spectrum. It is not the first time that LightSquared has publicly lashed out at the GPS industry. Last year, before the F.C.C. blocked the operating license, LightSquared executives accused the industry of manipulating key tests that produced negative results.
The lawsuit against Deere, Garmin and Trimble Navigation contends that lobbying from the GPS industry and the resulting F.C.C. decision to deny LightSquared a license helped to precipitate LightSquared’s bankruptcy in May 2012. The two GPS industry groups named in the lawsuit are the Coalition to Save our GPS and the United States GPS Industry Council.
Mr. Falcone and Harbinger say they have poured billions of dollars into testing and building the network and are seeking damages of at least $1.9 billion.
No stranger to controversy, Mr. Falcone is also battling the Securities and Exchange Commission on civil accusations that he took a loan from Harbinger Capital to pay a tax bill. Earlier this year Mr. Falcone said he had reached a settlement with the S.E.C. to pay an $18 million fine. The S.E.C. last month overruled the decision, adding another later of uncertainty to Mr. Falcone’s future business activities.
Representatives for Deere, Garmin, Trimble Navigation and the two lobbying groups could not be immediately reached for comment.
