Dutch Court Okays Sale of LaSalle Bank

The supreme court of the Netherlands overturned on July 13 a lower court ruling that clears the way for ABN Amro to sell Chicago-based LaSalle Bank to the Bank of America in a deal valued at $21 billion. The high court’s decision, which said that ABN’s shareholders need not vote on the La Salle sale, removes some of the uncertainty over the competing takeover bids for ABN Amro itself by Barclays PLC and a group led by the Royal Bank of Scotland that includes the Belgian-Dutch financial services form Fortis and the Spanish firm Santander. That group’s offer to buy ABN Amro specifically include La Salle, so a revised offer is likely.