Beleaguered Chinese coffee chain Luckin Coffee Inc. said on Thursday afternoon that the attempt by the board of directors to overthrow its chairman was not successful.

The board disclosed the previous Thursday that it would conduct a vote to oust Charles Zhengyao Lu as board member and chairman, but said the vote did not reach the two-thirds threshold required to actually initiate the action. 

The company said during the time that the move was a result of its probe into the firm, which has already booted out a number of senior executives including the chief executive.

The move will be viewed as the latest issue for the problematic group. This series of setbacks started early this year with the disclosure that Luckin inflated sales and revenue equivalent to several hundred millions of dollars. At that time, its chief executive officer and chief operating officer, Jenny Zhiya Qian and Jian Liu, were both terminated as a result.

Later, in a related scandal that involved Lu, a private firm he controlled failed to settle on a $518 million loan provided by a syndicate of lenders. The loan was collateralized by 611 million Luckin Coffee shares, which were seized by the banks.

Based on the Chinese coffee chain's articles of association, an executive can be ousted by stakeholders or other board officials. The ongoing public discord for corporate control is an indication that Luckin won't easily be able to brush aside an accounting mess that has made the company's stock worthless.

Once hailed as one of the promising growth prospects in China, Luckin Coffee has been under the crosshairs of US and Chinese regulators for anomalous transactions. The company completed its internal inquiry earlier in the week, divulging that sales were inflated by around $300 million last year.

While board members eventually failed to rally enough backing to remove Lu, the board earlier bared its decision to terminate another 12 workers who were involved in the irregularities. Luckin halted trading on June 29 and set for delisting from the Nasdaq by end of next week, as per advice by the US exchange.

Now that efforts have failed, all eyes are on the next critical general meeting, where stakeholders will also vote on resolutions to eject at least three other executives besides Lu, and pick two independent officers.

Luckin Coffee was unveiled in 2017 and secured $561 million in its IPO less than two years after its founding, with plans to surpass Starbucks in China through an aggressive growth strategy, attracting consumers with an app-based buying platform that focused on takeaway and delivery.