WASHINGTON (CNN) - A watchdog group that investigates alleged corruption by government officials said Wednesday it is filing a shareholders' lawsuit against Vice President Dick Cheney and the oil company he once headed over alleged fraudulent accounting practices.

"Whether it is the Enron, Arthur Andersen, Global Crossing, or now the Halliburton and Harken scandals, there is a dangerous intersection between politicians of all stripes, Democrat and Republican, attempting to feed at the trough of business greed," said Judicial Watch Chairman Larry Klayman.

Jennifer Millerwise, a Cheney spokeswoman, said: "This is a case without merit."

"The claims in this lawsuit are untrue, unsupported and unfounded," Doug Foshee, Halliburton's chief financial officer, said in a statement. "We are working diligently with the SEC to resolve its questions regarding the company's accounting procedures. Halliburton has always followed and will continue to follow guidelines established by the SEC and GAAP, General Accepted Accounting Principles."

Halliburton provides products and services to the petroleum and energy industries.

Judicial Watch is also suing troubled accounting firm Arthur Andersen LLP, which was Halliburton's (HAL: down $0.51 to $13.61, Research, Estimates) auditing firm at the time. Andersen was indicted for its role in shredding documents related to the Enron scandal.

The lawsuit was being shipped by courier Wednesday to federal district court for the northern district of Texas in Dallas, Judicial Watch spokesman Brian Doherty said. The group claims the accounting practices resulted in the overvaluation of the company's shares, which resulted in investors' being deceived. Cheney was chairman and chief executive of the oilfield services company from 1995 to 2000.

Judicial Watch filed the suit on behalf of shareholders Stephen S. Stephens, Lyle Lionbarger and Deanna Lionbarger, who are seeking about $475,000 in damages.

The suit names Cheney and several members of Halliburton's board of directors and executive management as defendants.

The Securities and Exchange Commission is already investigating accounting practices at Halliburton, and the company has said it is cooperating with the probe but it believes it did nothing wrong.

"We must usher in a new era of integrity in corporate America," Bush told the Association for a Better New York Tuesday. He called for an end to "cooking the books." The latest major improper financial disclosure was made last month by the telecommunications company WorldCom, which said it had improperly accounted for $3.8 billion in expenses, inflating its earnings.

The report sent WorldCom's stock plummeting, prompted the SEC to file fraud charges and triggered widespread criticism from politicians, investors and employees, thousands of whom were laid off.

Houston-based energy company Enron was found to be shredding documents as late as Jan. 14, despite the company's December bankruptcy filing that cost thousands of investors and employees their life's savings.

Some lawmakers have raised questions about President Bush's 1990 sale of Harken Energy Corp. stock, which took place when he was a businessman and a member of the company's board of directors. The sale came two months before the company disclosed a major loss. Bush has said the matter was cleared years ago, and he accuses political opponents of trying to use it against him.