There will be no compulsory redundancies in the Netherlands if Fortis’ joint bid for the entire ABN Amro banking group succeeds, chairman Jean-Paul Votron said on RTL-Z television.

The Dutch-Belgian Fortis is part of a consortium containing Royal Bank of Scotland and Santander which has bid €71bn for the Dutch bank. If the deal goes through, Fortis will take over ABN Amro’s Benelux operations. The merger will lead to 6,000 to 7,500 job losses.
Meanwhile, the four banking unions are to join shareholders’ lobby group VEB in its court battle against ABN Amro. The four said on Thursday they would lodge a plea at the company court backing calls by the VEB for an inquiry into ABN Amro’s management practices.