The legal battle between Lyft and its former COO is shaping up to be a long, ugly fight. The on-demand car company has accused Travis VanderZanden of stealing tens of thousands of secret company documents before he joined Lyft's main competitor, Uber. Now VanderZanden has fired back in a new court filing, saying he was plotting with Lyft's board of directors to dispose of the company's CEO before leaving the startup.

According to Reuters, VanderZanden claims he took part in conversations with board members to replace Logan Green as Lyft's CEO:

"Unbeknownst to Green, I was engaged in discussions about future options for the CEO position at Lyft with various members of Lyft's board of directors, including the possibility that I would replace Green as CEO of Lyft," VanderZanden said in the filing.

He did not say how he knows Green was ignorant of those discussions.

A Lyft spokesperson confirmed to Reuters that VanderZanden had discussed the CEO position with two board members. However, those two board members—venture capitalists with Founders Fund and Andreessen Horowitz—shot down VanderZanden's allegations and said they continue to support Green.

[Andreessen Horowitz's Scott Weiss] called VanderZanden's allegations "patently false" and said he had never held private discussions with him about replacing Green. [Founders Fund's Geoff Lewis] said they "would never entertain plans to forcefully remove a CEO."

VanderZanden also used the court filing to deny allegations that he stole sensitive documents from Lyft.

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