Goldilocks Investment Co, a leading shareholder of Noble Group Ltd, has filed a lawsuit with the Singapore High Court against the commodities trader and some of its former and current senior executives, alleging they inflated Noble’s assets.

"We have filed it today," Daniel Chia, a Morgan Lewis Stamford lawyer who is representing Goldilocks, an Abu Dhabi Financial Group equity fund, said.

The move comes days after Singapore-listed Noble said it would not make the redemption payment for its $379 million bonds which matured. Noble is seeking a $3.4 billion debt restructuring that is crucial for its survival.

Noble’s restructuring deal has been opposed by some bondholders and shareholders such as Goldilocks, which has an 8.1 per cent stake in the trading company. The fund was not available for comment.

In a filing to the Singapore bourse, Noble said its founder and chairman emeritus Richard Elman had resigned as a non-executive director. It gave no reason for the resignation of the 77-year-old executive.

Elman founded the company in 1986 and then rode a commodities bull run to build it into one of the world’s biggest traders.

Hong Kong-headquartered Noble has been negotiating a debt-for-equity swap for months after selling billions of dollars of assets, taking hefty writedowns and cutting hundreds of jobs over the past three years.

The lawsuit filed alleges that some of the defendants "sanctioned aggressive revenue recognition and creative accounting policies in order to inflate the valuations of Noble’s ‘associate companies’ and long-term commodity contracts".

"The objective of these overvaluations was to inflate Noble’s revenue and balance sheet," according to a copy of the 72-page filing seen by Reuters.

Noble confirmed it had been served a "writ of summons" by Goldilocks.