A lawyer for Deutsche Bank (DB.US) said on Friday that he had reached a settlement with some shareholders who had sued the German bank, claiming it had paid too little for Deutsche Postbank AG, the country's largest bank. Lawyer Jan Bayer rejected the bank's offer, saying it was a "stupid" proposal that "died at birth".

Deutsche Bank said it would not comment on the negotiations.

In a statement, Deutsche Bank said: "As we have said in the past, we are in settlement discussions with different groups of claimants in the Postbank acquisition litigation."

A key element of the settlement was a per-share payment of €36.50.

Any settlement would mark a significant step forward in a long-running case that has cast a shadow over Deutsche Bank, recently forcing it to set aside €1.3bn (€1.43bn) to cover potential payouts.

Deutsche Bank began buying Postbank, which has millions of customers, in the aftermath of the global financial crisis in 2008 but has been unable to fully integrate it and has had IT system problems during the merger process, leading to widespread problems with customers being unable to access their accounts or having them locked automatically, prompting investor lawsuits that have required Deutsche Bank to set aside €1.3bn in reserves.