Michael Lewis, best-selling author of The Big Short about the mortgage meltdown, has been sued for defamation by an asset manager featured in the book.
Other targets in the lawsuit are Lewis's publisher and prominent hedge fund manager Steven Eisman of FrontPoint Partners LLC.
Wing Chau and his firm Harding Advisory LLC claim Mr Lewis made "false and defamatory" statements in the book "and want to redress that wrong," according to the lawsuit filed in Manhattan federal court on Friday and made public today.
Mr Lewis and the publisher WW Norton & Company could not immediately be reached to comment on the lawsuit. Mr Eisman, who was one of Mr Lewis's sources for the book, said he had not received any notice of being sued and could not comment.
"In sharing the purported insider's view of the mortgage market meltdown, Mr Lewis made false and defamatory statements about an experienced investment professional, Wing Chau, and his firm, Harding Advisory LLC," the lawsuit said.
It said the book portrays Mr Eisman as a "heroic" figure who foresaw the collapse of the market and made a fortune betting against it. In contrast, Mr Chau and other managers with expertise in collateralised debt obligations (CDOs) were "villains" who "were according to Mr Lewis, responsible for the crisis," the court document said.
Mr Chau seeks unspecified damages against all the defendants and punitive damages.
The full title of the book is The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine. It was published in March 2010 and spent six weeks as Number one on The New York Times list of hardcover nonfiction bestsellers.
Mr Lewis is also the author of a recent article about Ireland's economic difficulties which was published in Vanity Fair. The article was highly critical of the former government's handling of the economy.
Reuters