ABN AMRO, Barclays shares rise after court ruling

LONDON, May 3 (Reuters) ABN AMRO shares rose 1.6 percent in volatile trade on Thursday as a Dutch court ruled the bank must freeze its billion sale of LaSalle to Bank of America, opening up the possibility of a rival bid for ABN by the Royal Bank of Scotland consortium.

''In my opinion, it will be beneficial for the consortium since the LaSalle deal is now blocked they can come up with a formal bid where LaSalle can be one of the assets they can acquire,'' Jan Leroy, fund manager at Petercam Asset Management.

''It clearly removes the first hurdle for a formal bid.'' The Dutch court said while it was the decision of ABN AMRO's management to sell LaSalle, the deal should be put to shareholders.

Barclays, which has made an agreed bid for ABN, was up 4 percent. There have been concerns that Barclays might be sucked into a biddding war for ABN.

''The RBS consortium is back in play and will have more time to bid for ABN,'' said Mark Sartori, head of sales and trading at Fox, Pitt-Kelton.

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