Principal content
RBS angered by sale of ABN unit
Royal Bank of Scotland was left fuming after a last-minute maneouvre by ABN Amro threatened to dash its hopes of mounting a break-up bid for the Dutch lender, which agreed a €66bn takeover by Barclays.
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Lex
Barclays/ABN Amro
On the very day that a consortium of rivals was supposed to have met ABN Amro, Barclays announced an agreed offer for the Dutch bank and it also revealed that LaSalle would be snapped up by Bank of America.
Book review
When sexual restraint is like pollution
More Sex is Safer Sex: The Unconventional Wisdom of Economics by Steven Landsburg entertains and inspires but sometimes goes too far.
Business life
A quick message for the e-mail killjoys

It is utter tosh to say we are bad at e-mail as it’s new: most of us have been at it for hours a day for nearly a decade, writes Lucy Kellaway
Comment
A risk shared may be more risky, not less

If banks have incentives to sell junk mortgages to borrowers who cannot conceivably repay, then something is going wrong, writes Wolfgang Münchau.