Rihanna sues ex-accountants over losses

Rihanna is suing her former accountants, blaming them for tens of millions of dollars in losses, shoddy bookkeeping, a failure to recommend she trim expenses when a 2009 tour was losing money and an ongoing audit by the Internal Revenue Service.

The lawsuit, filed Thursday in federal court in Manhattan, seeks unspecified damages against New York-based Berdon LLP and two accountants. A Berdon spokeswoman said the company had no immediate comment, The Associated Press reports.

The singer, suing under her real name, Robyn Fenty, alleges through her attorneys that the defendants drained tens of millions of dollars from revenues while she launched four national and international tours over a five-year period.

By the "Last Girl on Earth" tour in 2009, Rihanna learned that the tour had managed "significant net losses" despite robust revenues, though the defendants had managed to pocket 22 percent of the tour's total revenues while paying Rihanna just 6 percent of revenues, the lawsuit says. It says Berdon's unusual accounting practice of paying itself a percentage of gross tour income as commissions left it no incentive to "counsel" Rihanna to reduce expenses or put in place appropriate financial controls.

The lawsuit alleges that the practice of paying itself commissions on revenues was not standard in the accounting and business management industry and created a clear conflict of interest.

Rihanna's lawyers also blame the accounting firm for an ongoing IRS audit of her tax returns, saying she was forced to spend significant resources to correct errors resulting from negligence.

Since firing the firm and its accountants in September 2010, Rihanna's fortunes have reversed, the lawsuit says. The "Loud" tour stretching from June 2011 to December 2011 produced a net profit equal to more than 40 percent of total tour revenues, it added. According to the lawsuit, the singer hired the accountants in 2005 when she was a 16-year-old from Barbados launching her career.