A former business associate of Edgar Bronfman, Jr., has filed a lawsuit worth at least $100 million against him, claiming the Seagram liquor heir cheated him out of his share of the fortune generated by the acquisition of Warner Music Group.

Richard Snyder, the former longtime CEO of Simon & Schuster, filed the suit today in New York Supreme Court. In a 44-page complaint, he claims Bronfman, who presided over the financially disastrous merger of Seagram and Vivendi, stabbed him in the back rather than admit that his only significant business success was engineered by someone else.

According to the suit, Snyder agreed in early 2002 to join Bronfman in creating a new venture that would acquire media properties with outside backing. Snyder signed on without a written contract, though he claims Bronfman gave him verbal assurances that he would receive a "fair and equitable" portion of any gains from their venture. But on the day Bronfman's acquisition of Warner Music Group closed, Snyder showed up at work to find his security card had been invalidated and his computer—purchased with his own money—had been taken away. By the time his computer was returned, two years later, it had allegedly been tampered with to prevent Snyder from retrieving e-mails and other materials that could be used in a lawsuit.

UPDATE: Orin Snyder of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher—attorney for Edgar Bronfman, Jr., provides the following statement:

These claims are absolute fiction. Simply put, Dick Snyder did not work on the Warner Music Group transaction and there was never an agreement to compensate him for anything. Following Dick Snyder's departure from Golden Books, Edgar Bronfman, Jr., provided him free office space. This is a case of no good deed going unpunished. Now, years later, Dick Snyder would punish that kindness by attempting to re-write history and try to claim compensation that is not owed him. We look forward to our day in court and are confident we will prevail.

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