Has Filed A Lawsuit Against GPS Makers, Deere & Co Seeking Nearly $2 Billion

Remember LightSquared ... the company that sought to build a wireless broadband network it said would be satellite delivered and then added high-powered terrestrial transmitters that would have interfered with just about every GPS currently in use? Well, they're back, at least in court. Harbinger Capital Partners, the hedge fund group that bought the assets of the company that eventually wound up in bankruptcy, has filed a $1.9 billion lawsuit against GPS makers and others because they did not initially tell LightSquared that there could be an interference problem.

Philip Falcone's Harbinger sued Garmin, Trimble Navigation, the U.S. GPS Industry Council and the Coalition to Save Our GPS, along with the maker of John Deere agricultural equipment, according to a report from Reuters. In the complaint filed last Friday, Harbinger said that it would not have made the investment in LightSquared if the GPS industry had disclosed the potential interference problems between 2002 and 2009.

The suit says the companies engaged in fraud by not making the interference issues known.

Inside GNSS reports that the suit goes on to claim that the GPS manufacturers purposely designed their receivers to use the spectrum owned by LightSquared.

Jim Kirkland, vice president and general counsel of Trimble, said in a statement that the lawsuit was "without merit" and an "attempt to avoid responsibility" on the part of LightSquared. He said Trimble will "vigorously defend" itself against the charges. He said that the losses incurred by Harbinger are a problem only for Harbinger.

The suit was filed in U.S. District court in Manhattan.

FMI: www.nysd.uscourts.gov