Western Digital Corp said on Thursday that legal action and other moves taken by Toshiba Corp in their dispute over the sale of its prized memory chip unit were harming Toshiba's stakeholders and customers.

Toshiba filed a lawsuit on Wednesday against Western Digital ? which jointly runs Toshiba's main semiconductor plant ? for 120 billion yen (£0.77 billion), claiming that an arbitration request and lawsuit by the California-based firm interfered with the sale of the chip unit.

It also blocked certain Western Digital employees from accessing databases related their joint ventures.