National Australia Bank said it took a provision of $65 million this half "with respect to long-standing legal proceedings where settlements are imminent".There's a list of offensive conduct where the bank may soon have to pay up, but most likely this provision is mainly intended to cover NAB's share of the bill payable by 20 banks for the 18-year-long wrangle over who owes whom what in the Bell Resources saga.The Western Australian Supreme Court in October 2008 ruled that the banks, including NAB, were liable to the liquidators (who brought the action in 1995 with funding from the WA government). The court also ruled that banks were unsecured creditors of Bell as of January 1990 (when banks refinanced Bell, took extra security, and set in chain the events that led to the legal blue in the first place).What the court left to the parties to sort out was exactly how much the banks would have to pay the liquidators.In concert with other banks NAB engaged in routine bombast about appealing the court's ruling, but it looks like the bank plans to pay up instead.Another long-standing legal thorn in NAB's side includes excessive charges on overdrafts levied by Clydesdale and Yorkshire banks (an industry-wide problem in Britain).