At the Netherlands’ highest civil court, lawyers clamoured to block the government’s move to wipe out stakes of shareholders and bondholders when it nationalised lender SNS Reaal earlier this month, the Financial Times reported. Investors at the hearing denounced Jeroen Dijsselbloem, finance minister, for exceeding his authority; one went so far as to accuse him of fraud.

Announcing a €3.7bn bailout of mortgage lender SNS Reaal, Dutch finance minister Jeroen Dijsselbloem said in a statement he had “looked at every alternative involving private parties”, but found none that could guarantee the stability of the Dutch banking system, the Financial Times reported. An earlier plan to have ING and ABN Amro, two other bailed-out institutions, rescue SNS had been blocked by the European Commission on state-aid grounds. Under the terms of SNS’s rescue, shareholders and subordinated debt holders will see their stakes wiped out.

Investors in 262 billion euros ($347 billion) of Dutch residential mortgage-backed securities risk being penalized by new bank liquidity rules, even as the securities prove among the safest home-loan bonds globally, Bloomberg reported. The notes won’t be categorized as liquid assets under regulations approved last week by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision because the underlying mortgages have an average loan-to-value ratio of 95 percent, a quirk of the Dutch housing finance system, where borrowers take on more debt because they can use tax deductions in place since the 19th century.

The first ever meeting of The Netherlands' Financial Stability Committee, set up by the government in November last year, has focused on ways of stabilising funding sources for mortgage lending, CentralBanking.com reported. A report from the meeting, published Tuesday, said high mortgage indebtedness was causing banks to rely heavily on market funding, which made banks vulnerable and reduced investment in Dutch banks' mortgage portfolios. This was being passed on to consumers in reduced mortgage lending.

Things are not looking good for the Dutch economy. The Dutch statistics agency on Thursday said the euro zone’s fifth-largest economy contracted 1.1% in the third quarter. It was one of the European Union’s worst third-quarter GDP outcomes and much worse than the flat growth for the quarter that the European Commission forecast just last week, The Wall Street Journal Brussels Beat blog reported. Were there any bright spots? No. Consumption fell 1.8% compared to the quarter a year ago. Investment was down a whopping 6.4%. Export growth slowed substantially.

Banks in the Netherlands are suffering rising losses on their domestic real-estate loan books, and warn that the pain isn't over as the industry struggles with structural overcapacity and a weak economy, The Wall Street Journal reported. Financial services company SNS Reaal NV on Thursday said nonperforming loans in its Dutch property loan book rose 38% to €1.33 billion ($1.63 billion) in the first half, representing 42% of its total outstanding loans.

A far-left-wing party is emerging as a front-runner in next month's elections in the Netherlands, as it benefits from growing voter resentment toward the German-led austerity drive and euro-zone bailouts, The Wall Street Journal reported. A win by the anti-austerity Socialist Party could threaten to unravel a cost-cutting plan agreed under the current government in April, and also could derail stringent budget targets for 2013 set by the European Commission and fiercely advocated by Prime Minister Mark Rutte.

Spyker NV, the owner of Swedish car maker Saab Automobile AB before its financial collapse late last year, Monday said it has filed a $3 billion lawsuit against General Motors Co. claiming the U.S. car giant drove the Swedish company into bankruptcy, The Wall Street Journal reported. Spyker filed the claim in the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Michigan. Saab Automobile declared itself bankrupt last December, ending a long struggle for survival by the auto maker after attempts by Spyker to revive and then sell the company failed.

Spyker NV, the owner of Swedish car maker Saab Automobile AB before its financial collapse late last year, Monday said it has filed a $3 billion lawsuit against General Motors Co. claiming the U.S. car giant drove the Swedish company into bankruptcy, The Wall Street Journal reported. Spyker filed the claim in the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Michigan. Saab Automobile declared itself bankrupt last December, ending a long struggle for survival by the auto maker after attempts by Spyker to revive and then sell the company failed.

Air France-KLM said Monday its net loss ballooned to nearly €900 million ($1.1 billion) in the second quarter after it took a hefty charge to pay for restructuring that will see it shed about 10 percent of the airline's workforce, Bloomberg Businessweek reported on an Associated Press story. The Franco-Dutch airline operator said its net loss grew to €895 million in the three months to June 30, compared to a loss of €197 million a year earlier.