DALLAS (Bloomberg) — A suit accusing billionaire Ross Perot's family trust of mismanaging a Bermuda-based fund so that it went from $2.5 billion to "less than zero" should be dismissed because it's against the wrong entities, a fund lawyer argued in court.

Outside investors in Parkcentral Global Hub Ltd. say the fund lost as much as $3 billion while falsely claiming it was hedged against such losses. Perot, 79, founder of Electronic Data Systems Corp., ran for US president in 1992 and 1996. He isn't named as a defendant in the case.

"Instead of suing the adviser they hired, they've named five entities they didn't have any relationship to at all," Daniel Gold, a lawyer for the Perot Family Trust and related entities, said in federal court in Dallas yesterday. "They have not been able to find a fiduciary duty on behalf of any of the Perot entities."

Three investors in the fund sued on behalf of outside investors. Last year, Southern Avenue Partners LP and Levine Capital Ltd. brought separate lawsuits against the Perot Family Trust and the other entities. The suits were combined into a complaint joined by another investor, Deborah Bash Mullen, who said she lost the $1 million she had in the fund when it imploded in 2008. Southern Avenue and Levine Capital said they lost "millions."

US District Judge Barbara M.G. Lynn, overseeing the case, said she would rule on the Perot entities' motion to dismiss the suit at a later date.

Perot and the Perot entities controlled the fund, a lawyer for the investors, Jeffrey Levinger of Hankinson Levinger LLP in Dallas, said in arguing against the dismissal request.

"Mr. Perot directly ratified the investment decisions," Levinger said.

The Perot Family Trust and related entities said in court papers that the suit against them should be dismissed because they weren't part of the agreements the investors signed to invest in the fund, and the entities didn't make the investment decisions. One of the entities, Petrus Securities, lost its investment in the same portfolio as the plaintiffs, according to court papers.

The partnership agreements imposed duties on the entities to the investors, and the defendants "significantly understate the level of their control" over the fund, the investors said in court papers.

Parkcentral Global, the insolvent Bermuda-based fund, isn't named as a defendant in the case.

"The global fund's net asset value went from over $2.5 billion to less than zero," the limited partners wrote in their combined complaint filed in August.

The defendants misrepresented the risks of the fund to attract investors and collect more than $305 million in fees, the investors said in their complaint. They disregarded its risk-management controls, the investors said.

"By late November 2008, the Global Fund was completely obliterated — its liabilities exceeded its assets," according to the complaint.

Steven Blasnik, president of Parkcentral Capital Management LP and manager of the Perot family's money since 1992, and other defendants formed Parkcentral Global in 2002 with $56 million in cash, according to the complaint.

"Defendants marketed the Global fund as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have access to the same money-management team (and proprietary trading techniques and strategies) used by the Perot family," the investors said.