A small victory – but for whom? Fortis shareholders held Brussels to ransom over its hasty nationalisation and onward sale of the group’s banking operations in Belgium and Luxembourg to BNP Paribas.

Although they had no economic stake in these units, they won court backing to vote on Fortis’s break-up plan and blocked it. Now they have seized the high ground again and extracted a third revision of BNP’s offer. The French bank will buy a quarter – instead of 10 per cent last time or 100 per cent originally – of their group’s main surviving asset, Fortis Insurance Belgium. They will also cut their exposure to a vehicle holding toxic assets.