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By court order of 18 March 2011, of which WestLB has become aware today, the General Court of the European Union has rejected the application of the Sparkassenverband Westfalen-Lippe to suspend the operation of a EU condition to discontinue the writing of new business by Westdeutsche ImmobilienBank AG ("WestImmo").

WestImmo is a 100% subsidiary of WestLB. The condition referred to above is part of a decision of the European Commission dated 12 Mai 2009 approving state aid granted to WestLB. It concerns the discontinuation of writing new business and the gradual run-down of the existing business of WestImmo after the deadline for the sale of WestImmo has expired. The European Commission had extended that deadline until 15 February 2011. However, by order of 31 January 2011 – i.e. prior to the expiry of the deadline on 15 February 2011 the General Court of the European Union had suspended the operation of the aforesaid condition. By virtue of the order now issued on 18 March 2011, the suspension order of 31 January 2011 has been cancelled. This also ends the suspension of the deadline and of the operation of the aforesaid condition.

Outside of the court proceedings described above, the Federal Republic of Germany applied on 28 October 2010 with the European Commission to extend the deadline for the sale or, as the case may be, the discontinuation of writing new business of WestImmo for an adequate period of time. On 30 January 2011, the Federal Republic of Germany applied with the European Commission to extend the deadline for the sale or, as the case may be, the discontinuation of writing new business of WestImmo to 31 July 2011. The European Commission has not yet decided hereon.

In reaction to the aforesaid order of the General Court of the European Union of 18 March 2011, the management board of WestLB will continue to take all measures within its powers to work towards a positive decision of the European Commission on extending the deadline, and, at the same time, procure, as a precaution, those resolutions of the bodies of WestLB and WestImmo that are necessary to ensure the satisfaction of the aforesaid EU condition. In this context, the management board of WestLB will continue the sales process for WestImmo.

In its ad hoc publication of 1 March 2011, WestLB has given notice that WestLB AG posted a break-even result of € 0 million under German GAAP for its 2010 financial year. This already includes a write-down in respect of the book value of the interest held by WestLB in WestImmo. In WestLB’s view, no additional write-down is necessary at this time.