The disastrous initial public offering of World Online, the Dutch internet company, has once again returned to haunt ABN Amro after the bank decided to launch an appeal against a fine of €18,150 ($17,750) from Dutch regulators.

The appeal comes exactly two and a half years after the €2.9bn IPO of World Online in March 2000, at the very peak of the internet bubble. The shares collapsed after it emerged that Nina Brink, the founder of the company, had sold shares at a fraction of the issue price just a few months before the deal. Ever since, ABN Amro and Goldman Sachs, who managed the deal, have had to live with the IPO's reputation as one of the worst excesses of the technology bubble.