Porsche SE was dealt a potential setback in its bid to take control of Volkswagen AG when a German court refused to strike down rules in VW's charter that protect the voting rights of the German state of Lower Saxony.

The court in Hanover, Germany, rejected a Porsche suit that sought to overturn a corporate rule at Volkswagen that allows shareholders with a 20 percent stake to block major company decisions. Presiding Judge Reinhard Saathoff criticized Porsche's efforts to compare the case to a European Union court ruling on a German law that contained the same standards on voting rights.

"The VW law and the charter aren't the same and we cannot treat them the same," Saathoff said yesterday. "If Porsche would interpret a ruling of my court as it did interpret the EU court ruling, I would be pretty mad."