Andy Stone alleges that the 1994 festive hit was taken from one he wrote five years earlier

Mariah Carey has been sued for $20m (£16m) after being asccused of copying hit song “All I Want for Christmas is You”.

The singer and her co-songwriter Walter Afansieff have been named in the lawsuit, which has been filed by Andy Stone.

Stone, in legal documents filed at the US District Court in the Eastern District of Louisiana, claims that their song was taken from one with the same name he co-wrote for Vince Vance & the Valiants in 1989. He says he never gave permission for it to be used.

Carey released her song in 1994 as part of her album Merry Christmas. It has since become one of the most well-known festive hits, and frequently re-enters the charts every year.

The documents, which have been obtained by the PA news agency, state that Carey and her collaborators “knowingly, willfully, and intentionally engaged in a campaign” to infringe Stone’s copyright for the song.

They added the defendants had also committed “acts of unjust enrichment by the unauthorised appropriation of plaintiff’s work and the goodwill associated therewith”.

Merry Christmas was released by Columbia Records on November 1 1994 and became the best-selling US Christmas album of all time, selling more than 15 million copies worldwide.

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