ROYAL Bank of Scotland has emphasised its willingness to pursue out-of-court settlement over investor claims relating to its £12 billion rights issue in 2008, as it emerges it is in mediation talks with representatives from both institutional and private investors.

The investors claim that the bank did not provide an adequate representative of the state of its finances when it held a rights issues during the financial crisis.

It is thought that following the bank’s £45 billion taxpayer-backed bailout these investors lost hundreds of millions of pounds.

The case is one of a number of legacy issues that continue to plague RBS since it was bailed out, and the bank is likely to want to avoid court if possible.

A report in The Times said that the mediation talks, which are thought to involve up to 30 senior lawyers, are being headed by commercial dispute resolution specialist Stephen Greenberg. It said five separate groups of shareholders are part of these talks, which are led on the bank’s behalf by general counsel William Luker.

In a statement, the bank said: “We continue to strongly defend these claims. We have always been clear that the bank is open to exploring an out of court resolution to matters, consistent with our legal obligations.”

There are as many as 34,000 claimants in the case, who are through to have lost between 85 per cent and 95 per cent of their investments.