Lawsuits happen every day, and even one for a $100 million—a number Dick Snyder’s people are happy to explain—isn’t that unusual in these litigious times. What’s interesting in this case is just who is suing whom.

An heir to the Seagram liquor fortune, Bronfman skipped college in order to pursue his aspiration to be a songwriter and producer for stage and screen. No mean success at either, he was soon occupying the corner office at Seagram. Bronfman put his stamp on the company with alarming speed: He sold a huge Seagram stake in DuPont and then spent $16.1 billion to buy both MCA (the parent of Univer-sal Studios) and PolyGram. He then sold the whole shebang to French utility company Vivendi for $34 billion and a promise from Vivendi chief Jean-Marie Messier that the two would run the firm as co-moguls.

Messier then proceeded to freeze out Bronfman and run the company into the ground. The entire debacle is estimated to have cost the Bronfman family close to $4 billion, and as a result, Bronfman, now 52, became the whipping boy of the financial press. Even after the successful purchase of Warner Music in 2003, he has never quite shaken the reputation of being someone born on third base who never made it home.

Bronfman’s critics say the only reason anybody still listens to him is that despite the lost billions, there are billions more where that came from. “When he bought PolyGram, he spent tens of millions hiring the Boston Consulting Group,” says a former ­employee. “It was funny: In meetings, everyone would look at him, and he’d say stuff like, ‘We’re not a record company. We’re a music company.’ And all the consultants would sit there and nod in agreement.”

Across the aisle is Dick Snyder, who ran Simon & Schuster from 1975 to 1994. In the process of turning S&S from a $40 million publishing back­water into a $2 billion powerhouse, Snyder earned a reputation for tyranny. One oft-repeated story, which Snyder denies, is that he fired underlings for having the temerity to ride in the same elevator as he did. After being summarily fired himself by Sumner Redstone when Viacom bought S&S in 1994, Snyder went on to an ignominious second act, failing in an attempt to save the floundering Golden Books and losing the friendship of longtime pal (and Golden Books investor) Barry Diller in the process. And then Snyder pretty much fell out of public view.

A framed photo from the time Ronald Reagan visited him sits on a table in his office, and its presence sends a twofold message. Snyder, who brought Woodward and Bernstein to S&S, certainly did sit atop the publishing world in his day. But as Bronfman’s supporters are quick to point out, he hasn’t had a significant business success since his S&S reign ended. If he thinks he’ll achieve one by pretending to have been Bronfman’s most trusted adviser, they say, he’s got another thing coming.