ABN Amro CEO Rijkman Groenik isn’t taking the threat to his job lying down.

Just days after hedge fund manager Christopher Hohn, who leads both The Children’s Investment Fund and the charge to break up the Dutch banking giant, called for Groenik’s ouster over ABN’s merger deal with Barclay’s, Groenik demanded information about any links between hedge funds and a consortium competing with Barclay’s.

In a May 1 letter, Groenik demanded that the consortium members—the Royal Bank of Scotland, Fortis and Banco Santander—provide information “with respect to any current or future shareholdings in ABN Amro,” the Business, a British magazine, reports. ABN is reportedly interested in any relationship between the consortium and hedge funds TCI, Toscafund—chaired by a former RBS chairman—and Algebris.

A Santander spokesman dismissed the conspiracy theory, telling the Business, “It is a nice little story but the three banks involved in this consortium have the kind of firepower that means they don’t need to act in concert with any hedge funds.”

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