The effort on the part of the firm, Sycamore Partners, to end the deal because of the coronavirus outbreak is “invalid” and “pure gamesmanship” after it failed to renegotiate the price, L Brands said in a Delaware court filing on Thursday

The dispute has become the most prominent example of a buyer trying to back out of a deal because of the pandemic.

Sycamore said on Wednesday that L Brands had violated terms of its February transaction agreement and that a “material adverse effect” occurred because of the pandemic, allowing it to terminate the deal to buy 55 percent of Victoria’s Secret for about $525 million.

L Brands said on Thursday that when the deal was negotiated, “the world was already well aware of the existence of Covid-19, and the parties agreed that Sycamore would bear the risk of any adverse impacts stemming from such a pandemic.” The definition of a “material adverse effect” explicitly carved out impacts from pandemics, the company said.

The company called Sycamore’s stance “pure gamesmanship.” Sycamore sent L Brands a letter on April 13 saying that it wanted to renegotiate the purchase price and other terms of the deal because of the coronavirus outbreak, according to L Brands. When the company declined to renegotiate — because the agreement “expressly allocates the risk of pandemics to Sycamore” — the private equity firm sent a termination notice and filed the subsequent lawsuit, according to the filing.

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