THE HAGUE - THE sale of some assets of Dutch bank ABN Amro by its new part-owner, government-owned Fortis Netherlands to Germany's Deutsche Bank, has been cancelled, Dutch news agency ANP reported on Wednesday.

It quoted a letter circulated among staff of the entities identified for sale, and said the information had been confirmed by ABN Amro.

The deal was approved by the European Commission competition watchdog in October.

Fortis, then a Belgian-Dutch banking and insurance company, said in July it would sell some of ABN Amro's commercial banking activities in the Netherlands to Germany's Deutsche Bank for 709 million euros (S$1.46 billion).

Deutsche Bank was to acquire two corporate client units, 13 commercial advisory branches, parts of the Hollandsche Bank Unie NV, and the services company IFN Finance BV.

Fortis was obliged to sell the assets to get regulatory approval for the takeover of ABN Amro last year as part of a consortium with Britain's RBS and Santander of Spain for a total sum of 71 billion euros.

The sale has since become a bane for Fortis as questions about the financing of the operation contributed to a liquidity crisis two months ago.

Fortis was subsequently dismantled and its Dutch assets, including ABN Amro, nationalised by the Dutch government for 16.8 billion euros. -- AFP