A group of investors headed by hedge fund Perry Capital has filed a lawsuit against the US treasury department in federal court on Sunday challenging its decision in 2012 to change the bailout terms for the state-owned firms Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

The investors have filed the lawsuit in the US District Court in Washington alleging that the Treasury and the regulator for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac took decisions that were in violation of the law that placed the two firms under state-ownership as they were facing collapse during the financial crisis.

The Treasury Department had changed its rules to ask the companies to pay most of their profits to the government instead of an earlier requirement that asked them to pay quarterly dividends of 10 per cent. The government has an 80 per cent stake in the mortgage firms that have recovered some of their payments to the customers from the banks, which had sold toxic assets to the firms. The alw suit has been filed against Treasury and the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), which is the regulator of the firms.

Meanwhile, another investors has recently filed a case against the US authorities alleging that government's placement of Fannie and Freddie into conservatorship in September 2008 was favourable for the economic development of the country but it takeover of the corporation destroyed common stock value in the market.