Macquarie Group aims to test the increasingly dubious stance of Deutsche Bank in a tussle over the funding of the airport link road project in Brisbane.In a move that serves to introduce some commercial rationality to the protracted dispute, Macquarie Capital Group yesterday said it has begun legal action to protect itself from having to cover millions of dollars worth of payments owed for shares in the $4.8 billion BrisConnections toll road project and that it has taken an eight per cent stake in the company.Macquarie has bought more than 31.4 million shares in BrisConnections and taken steps to initiate legal proceedings in the Supreme Court of Queensland to ensure the relevant parties fulfil their contractual obligations, Macquarie said in a statement.The investment bank said it had paid a further principal amount of $92.5 million to BrisConnections under a bridge facility.One of the "relevant parties" aiming to wriggle out of its funding obligation is Deutsche Bank.Deutsche, like Macquarie, is obliged to fund the calls on partly paid shares of BrisConnections where owners of those shares do not. Few BrisConnections shareholders are likely to do so since the shares have become the playthings of ill-informed day traders, who bought them for less than one cent. (And given that the listing of BrisConnections essentially failed in mid 2008.)Investors are expected to pay $1 per security at the end of April 2009 and again at the end of January 2010.BrisConnections' major unitholder, Melbourne IT entrepreneur Nick Bolton, is trying to call a meeting of shareholders to wind up the company so he and other unitholders will not need to pay outstanding instalments.His private company, Australian Style Investments Pty Ltd, holds around 17 per cent of BrisConnections, carrying a liability of more than $133 million.BrisConnections initiated legal action in the Supreme Court of Victoria to obtain an order for Australian Style Investments to be wound up.Macquarie Capital Group Ltd and Deutsche Bank AG will each underwrite 50 per cent of the instalments. The latter is now arguing, alongside Bolton's companies in the Supreme Court, that it does not need to make the payment if the company is wound up.BrisConnections has said even if the company were wound up, unitholders would still need to pay outstanding instalments. It also cast doubt that the company's assets could be sold.- with Business Spectator