Philip Falcone's Harbinger Capital on Friday sued agricultural equipment maker Deere & Co and Global Positioning System companies and groups for damages of $1.9 billion as it looks to recoup its investment in bankrupt wireless company LightSquared, Reuters reported yesterday. The lawsuit's defendants, who include GPS companies Garmin International and Trimble Navigation Ltd., had opposed LightSquared's plans to build a wireless network because of concerns it would interfere with GPS systems, which are used in everything from farming to airline navigation. Other defendants include industry groups the U.S. GPS Industry Council and the Coalition to Save Our GPS. Harbinger, which has spent billions of dollars on LightSquared, said in a complaint filed on Friday that it never would have made the investments if the GPS industry had disclosed potential interference problems between the LightSquared spectrum and GPS equipment between 2002 and 2009.
