NEW YORK: Carl Icahn, the billionaire investor with a history of initiating hostile actions against companies, said Monday that he was suing Motorola to force it to hand over documents related to its money-losing mobile devices unit and determine if the board of the company had failed in its duties.

Icahn, the second-biggest shareholder in Motorola, is engaged in a proxy battle with the company and has proposed a slate of four directors to the board of the company, whose market share lags behind those of Nokia and Samsung Electronics.

Motorola had previously announced that it was looking at options including a separation of its mobile devices business, following pressure from Icahn.

The Icahn Group on Monday said it had filed a lawsuit in a Delaware court seeking documents related to Motorolas mobile devices business, including board discussions about a potential spinoff and the units performance.

“We demanded these materials for the purposes of enabling us to investigate whether and to what extent the board of directors of Motorola failed in their duties as directors,” Icahn said in a letter to Motorola shareholders.

Icahn also asked for documents, if there are any, showing use of Motorolas aircraft and property by senior management, the board of directors and their families. The investor also questioned whether Greg Brown, recently appointed as chief executive, was qualified for the job.

Icahn holds about 6.3 percent of Motorola.

Icahn promised to share the released information with Motorola stockholders, but added that Motorola had said it would not comply.

A Motorola spokeswoman, Jennifer Erickson, said the company had not yet received a copy of the lawsuit but would review it in due course.

Motorola, which has said it faces a challenging 2008, has been losing to rivals such as Nokia and Samsung in the last year amid criticism of its cell phone line-up and failure to produce a strong successor to the once-lauded Razr phone.

Charter Equity Research analyst Ed Snyder said that Icahn, who failed to win a Motorola board seat last year, was likely looking for information that would help him win shareholder support ahead of the annual meeting, set for May 5.

“Hes trying to wrest control of the company because he thinks his slate can do a better job than the current board, which is not a high bar,” said Snyder who expects shareholders to be more open to Icahn at this years director election.

Turmoil in housing continued to reverberate Tuesday across several parts of the industry.

Freddie Mac, the big mortgage finance compamy, posted a $2 billion loss for the third quarter and warned that it might not have enough capital on hand to cover the mandatory reserves for its mortgage commitments. The company has been battered by a rising wave of foreclosures tied to subprime mortgage defaults and is now “seriously considering” cutting its stock dividend.

Shares of the company plummeted 26 percent in early trading, to $27.83.

“Without doubt, 2007 has been an extremely difficult year for the countrys housing and credit markets,” Richard Syron, the chairman and chief executive of Freddie Mac, wrote in a statement.

Syron was not alone in his lament. R. Horton, the nations largest home builder, reported a $50.1 million loss in its fiscal fourth quarter as the housing downturn pummeled its inventory, goodwill and land-use contracts. Lower demand and tighter lending standards have cut back the companys business and caused many clients to cancel contracts.

“We expect the housing environment to remain challenging,” Donald Horton, the companys chairman, said in a statement.

The subprime debacle also claimed another high-profile casualty: HR Blocks chairman and chief executive, Mark Ernst, who said Tuesday he would resign amid the companys exposure to risky loans. Richard Breeden, the former chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission, will take over as chairman. The chief executive slot will be temporarily filled by Alan M. Bennett, a former top executive at Aetna, the insurance company.

Home building data released by the government Tuesday suggested the troubles in the housing sector will continue. Permits for residential groundbreakings fell 6.6 percent in October to their lowest level in over 14 years. They have dipped nearly 25 percent since last October, to a seasonally adjusted 1.18 million annual rate, the Commerce Department said.

Meanwhile, new residential construction grew slightly last month, rising 3 percent, to a 1.23 million annual pace. It was the first increase in four months, but housing starts remain near the lowest level since the recession of the early 1990s.

Investors will also be focusing on Tuesdays economic forecast from the Federal Reserve. Central bankers have warned that housing problems will continue unabated into next year.

Postal workers in London and Liverpool today took part in a second day of wildcat strike action, causing further delays to mail deliveries in a continuing dispute over new shift patterns.

An 48-hour official strike ended early yesterday morning, but there were unofficial walkouts during the day.

The wildcat action spread today to 30 delivery offices in the capital and on Merseyside.

Royal Mail said workers in the rest of the country’s 1,500 delivery offices were working normally.

Staff have begun clearing the backlog of mail the official strike caused.

The unofficial action began yesterday after a new row broke out when workers were told their shift times had been changed.

Staff at offices in east London and Nine Elms, in central London, were joined today by more colleagues in Liverpool, where wildcat strikes escalated from yesterday’s 10 sorting offices to 17 across the city.

The Communication Workers Union (CWU) has called a series of official strikes from next Monday in its long-running dispute with Royal Mail over pay, jobs and pensions.

The prime minister yesterday told the workers there was “no justification” for the dispute continuing and said they should get back to work.

The TUC criticised his comments, saying they would not help resolve the dispute.

Mark Walsh, the Merseyside branch secretary of the CWU, explained why workers were refusing to work today.

He said: “Staff came into work and were told that their starting hours had been changed and they would not be paid for some time and they would be expected to stay later at the end of the day.

“These changes had been imposed on the staff without their agreement, and they decided of their own accord not to go to work today.

He denied that the CWU had lost control of the dispute.

He said: “We have offered a compromise by saying to management that we will accept their working hours if we are given two weeks to come up with alternative proposals.

“That offer has been rejected, and that is where we are this morning.

“Talks are ongoing with local management, and we hope to have a mass meeting with our members later today.”

Outside Liverpool’s main sorting office, around 100 staff were refusing to enter the building.

The total number of staff thought to be taking part in the wildcat strike is around 400.

Gregor Gall, professor of industrial relations at Hertfordshire University, said there was a “pressing need” for government intervention because of the entrenched positions of both sides in the dispute.

He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “If the service is to be resumed to its normal state, then I think the government, as the single shareholder, does need to step in, and not just call for an end to the strike but actually work towards resolving the issues.

Professor Gall said the prime minister should instruct Royal Mail managers to give some ground in an attempt to find a compromise.