ABN Amro can proceed with its sale of U.S. unit LaSalle, the Dutch Supreme Court said, boosting the prospect that Barclays will succeed in its near $90 billion takeover bid for ABN, Reuters reports.
The ruling will put pressure on a rival consortium led by Royal Bank of Scotland to rethink its strategy and revise its offer to exclude LaSalle from its bid to buy the Netherlands’ biggest bank, ahead of a deadline in 10 days.
A takeover of ABN would be the biggest ever bank deal.
The court overturned a lower court ruling saying that ABN’s shareholders would have to vote on the $21 billion sale of LaSalle to Bank of America because there were no grounds for stopping the sale of LaSalle. The deal to sell LaSalle was announced in April but halted by Amsterdam’s commercial court in May.
“(The) request for an interim injunction to suspend the contract of sale regarding LaSalle was dismissed irrevocably,” presiding judge Hans Fleers told a packed courtroom during a 20-minute ruling.
After dramatically accelerating its usual deliberation process, the court said any new case trying to stop the LaSalle sale would have little chance of success.