Board members at Walt Disney Co. on Thursday defended their selection of President Robert Iger as the successor to Chief Executive Officer Michael Eisner, calling a lawsuit challenging the process “baseless and inaccurate.”

Former Disney directors Roy Disney and Stanley Gold filed a lawsuit earlier this week that claims Burbank-based Disney’s board of directors misled them about the search for a new CEO and didn’t look for outside candidates in good faith. The dissenting shareholders want to throw out the company’s recent directors’ election and are demanding that Disney release information about its search.

“Last September we committed the board to a thorough, careful and reasoned process to select Disney’s next chief executive officer,” the non-management directors of the board said in a statement released Thursday. “At the end of the process, we unanimously concluded that Bob Iger was the best choice to lead the company forward as CEO. The performance of the company in the period leading up to the selection and since that time only underscores our confidence in the selection we made.”

Disney shares gained 0.3 percent to settle at $26.75 on Thursday, down $1.05, or 3.8 percent, year-to-date.