Author J. R. R. Tolkien’s estate has sued New Line Cinema claiming the company used “accounting chicanery” in order to avoid paying royalties from the Academy Award-winning trilogy based on the writer’s books.

The Tolkien Trust, a British charity that represents the estate of late British author J. R. R. Tolkien, filed a suit Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court against New Line Cinema and Peter Jackson’s Katja Motion Picture Group, accusing the companies of withholding due royalties from the estate.

The trust, as well as Tolkien’s original publisher, HarperCollins Publishers, are seeking a court order that terminates any rights the studio has to any of Tolkien’s works, including “Hobbit,” a project New Line wishes to adapt for the big screen next.

New Line is accused of committing “accounting chicanery,” the Hollywood Reporter informs, by raising the cost of each film in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy by more than $100 million and refusing to allow an audit of the second and third film in the series, thus failing to pay royalties amounting to at least $150 million.

In addition to these compensatory damages, the trust is also seeking unspecified punitive damages.

The trustees running the estate explained that they tried to find a solution to the situation out of court but that they did not succeed.

“The Tolkien trustees do not file lawsuits lightly and have tried unsuccessfully to resolve their claims out of court. But in this case, New Line has left them no option at all,” Steven Maier, the trustees' U. K.-based lawyer, was quoted by E! Online as saying.

“New Line has not paid the plaintiffs even one penny of its contractual share of gross receipts despite the billions of dollars of gross revenue generated by these wildly successful motion pictures.”

New Line released “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring” in 2001, “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” in 2002 and “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” in 2003, all directed by Peter Jackson. The three films won a total of 17 Academy Awards.

The trust’s suit alleges that the trilogy has grossed $6 billion worldwide, including box office results as well as DVD sales.

New Line declined to comment on the allegations. The studio has been hit with lawsuits related to the “Rings” trilogy before, by no other than Jackson himself, joined by partner Fran Walsh; they claimed the studio did not give them their due part of the profits. The case was eventually settled.