MUMBAI: A group of investors have sued Viacom Inc's Paramount Pictures saying that the studio's misinterpretations about a movie financing deal has lead them to losing their $40.1 million investment.

The lawsuit has been filed in the US District Court in Manhattan by Allianz Risk Transfer, Marathon Structured Finance Fund, Newstar Financial and Munich Re Capital Markets New York.

The firms, which invested in debt instruments, claimed that Paramount had failed to disclose changes made in its risk-mitigation techniques in regards to a slate of films that were to be produced, released and distributed between April 2004 and March 2006.

These firms have now decided to significantly curtail the use of international presales to co-finance the slate of films.

In total, investors provided about $231.2 million in financing to Paramount through the investment vehicle, the complaint said. The transaction closed in July 2004, reported Dow Jones newswire.

"We are disappointed that these sophisticated investors, who agreed to accept the widely known risks of investing in a slate of motion pictures, are attempting through litigation to undo the bargain they struck in 2004," a Paramount spokesman said in a statement.

"We intend to establish in court that these allegations are entirely without merit," he added.