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Pacific Investment Management Co. stepped up its defense against Bill Gross's breach-of-contract lawsuit, alleging its former star manager leaked details on Pimco executives' pay and withheld emails.

Pimco asked a California court Tuesday to force Mr. Gross to turn over emails sent from a private account Pimco says he had used to discuss his 2014 Pimco departure with his new employer, Janus Capital Group. In Pimco's filing, the firm's lawyers also accused the bond investor of harboring a "sad obsession with attacking his former employer and colleagues."

"Pimco's latest motion is an effort to deflect blame from its litigation misconduct by making off-topic insults and baseless accusations against our client," Patricia Glaser, Mr. Gross's lawyer, said in a statement Wednesday. "The only party trying to play 'hide the ball' is Pimco."

Last week, Mr. Gross accused Pimco of gamesmanship over the scheduling of depositions with key executives at the California money manager.

The dueling filings escalated the pretrial rhetoric over a legal tangle between one of the asset-management industry's brightest stars and the firm he once personified. Mr. Gross abruptly left Pimco in September 2014 amid simmering tensions with his colleagues, and last year sued the manager for at least $200 million in damages alleging he was forced out.

Mr. Gross's lawyers wrote last week in court documents that Pimco had victimized their client twice—first during his ouster and now "within the lawsuit itself." On Tuesday, Pimco said Mr. Gross's "misconduct during the discovery phase suggests he did not know what he was getting himself into."

Pimco's lawyers in their Tuesday filing accused Mr. Gross of withholding initially the existence of an AOL email account they had discovered through document requests to Janus. They also accused him of anonymously mailing to a reporter confidential information on the 2013 compensation of key Pimco executives, including chief investment officer Dan Ivascyn, former chief executive Mohamed El-Erian and CEO Doug Hodge.

Mr. Gross' lawyers responded to Pimco's lawyers earlier this month by acknowledging he had sent a redacted version of the pay document to a reporter and shared it with "8-9 Pimco managing directors" in August or September of 2014, Pimco said in its filing.

The court is slated to hear from both sides of the suit this Friday, and the trial is scheduled to begin in August 2017.

Mr. Gross's lawyers argued in a court filing that Pimco had no right to take action against Mr. Gross for sharing the pay information, noting his actions were protected by the First Amendment and the National Labor Relations Act.

Write to Justin Baer at justin.baer@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

September 14, 2016 14:55 ET (18:55 GMT)

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