The Netherlands’ reputation as a trustworthy trading partner is at stake in the ABN Amro court case, Bank of America’s CFO Joe Price is quoted as saying in today’s Financieele Dagblad.

The high court is currently looking at whether the company court was right to freeze ABN Amro’s sale of LaSalle to BoA.
‘If we cannot negotiate a sale in all good faith, then you have to ask how you can still do business in the Netherlands?,’ the paper quotes Price as saying.
BoA has agreed to pay $21bn for LaSalle but the company court ruled the deal should first have been put to shareholders. The outcome of the case is crucial in the takeover battle for ABN Amro because Royal Bank of Scotland also wants the US bank.
Price denied that the purchase was a poison pill to thwart the RBS-led takeover bid. ‘We did not conspire. We want LaSalle handed over,’ the paper quoted him as saying. ‘Chicago is an important market and we have wanted to make an acquisition there for years.’