Investors who bought shares in the disastrous initial public offering of World Online last year have called senior executives from the company and ABN Amro as witnesses in preliminary hearings ahead of a potential civil lawsuit.

ABN Amro Rothschild, the equity capital markets arm of ABN Amro, and Goldman Sachs were joint global bookrunners of the IPO for the Dutch internet company last March. World Online shares peaked at €52 ($48.32) on the first day of trading - a premium of 21% on the issue price of €43.