American shareholders in Holland’s biggest bank ABN Amro have launched a class action lawsuit in an effort to fend off the bank’s merger with Barclays and the sale of LaSalle, news agency Reuters said on Tuesday. Shareholders are accusing the bank’s bosses of mismanagement.

Meanwhile, the Amsterdam company court will decide on Thursday whether to annul the sale of LaSalle. The Dutch shareholders lobby group VEB took the issue to court on Saturday, arguing the deal was a poison pill to make ABN Amro less attractive to its other bidder, the banking consortium led by Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).
ABN Amro wants to merge with British bank Barclays. The rival RBS-led consortium wants to take over the Dutch banking group and split it up. RBS itself was after LaSalle.