Miley Cyrus has been served with a lawsuit alleging she and her fellow songwriters plagiarised portions of a Bruno Mars song when they wrote her Grammy-winning hit 'Flowers'.

The singer is being sued for copyright infringement by Tempo Music Investments, a company claiming it owns a share of the U.S. copyright for Bruno's song 'When I Was Your Man', after acquiring it from Philip Lawrence, who co-wrote the song along with Mars, Ari Levine, and Andrew Wyatt. Mars was not named as a plaintiff.

In filing with the Los Angeles federal court, Tempo accuses 'Flowers' of unauthorized “exploitation” of several elements 'When I Was Your Man'. The suit also names Sony Music Publishing, Apple, Target, Walmart, and several other companies as defendants accused of distributing 'Flowers'.

“Any fan of Bruno Mars’ ‘When I Was Your Man’ knows that Miley Cyrus’ ‘Flowers’ did not achieve all of that success on its own. ‘Flowers’ duplicates numerous melodic, harmonic, and lyrical elements of ‘When I Was Your Man,’ including the melodic pitch design and sequence of the verse, the connecting bass-line, certain bars of the chorus, certain theatrical music elements, lyric elements, and specific chord progressions,” the lawsuit states.

“It is undeniable based on the combination and number of similarities between the two recordings that ‘Flowers’ would not exist without ‘When I Was Your Man,’” the complaint, which names Cyrus’ fellow songwriters Gregory Hein and Michael Pollack as co-defendants, continued. “With ‘Flowers,’ Cyrus, Hein, and Pollack have created a derivative work of ‘When I Was Your Man’ without authorization.”