On the finish of 4 days of cross examination, Jes Staley stepped down from the witness stand and hugged his authorized workforce.
It had been a gruelling week for the previous Barclays chief govt, who stated he had endured public humiliation and had put his marriage at risk as he fought to overturn a lifetime ban imposed by the Monetary Conduct Authority over his relationship with the late paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
The mere indisputable fact that he challenged the monetary regulator would have been sufficient to generate headlines, significantly given references in courtroom filings to Prince Andrew and Lord Peter Mandelson, the British ambassador to the US, who had been each contacts of Epstein.
However through the London courtroom listening to that completed earlier this week, Staley addressed quite a few intimate emails he despatched to Epstein. These included the now-infamous reference to Disney princesses equivalent to Snow White, in addition to the intercourse offender’s contacts along with his daughter Alexa Staley, to whom the previous Barclays boss forwarded correspondence referring to “Uncle Jeffrey”.
The 68-year-old American additionally admitted he had engaged in consensual sexual activity with a lady on Epstein’s workers at an residence owned by the intercourse offender’s brother. This was info that had not beforehand been made public regardless of the numerous particulars which have emerged in courtroom circumstances around the globe since Epstein died in a New York jail cell in 2019 awaiting trial on intercourse trafficking expenses.
With the courtroom drama concluded, Staley has to attend and see if his high-profile authorized gamble to clear his identify has paid off. A judgment isn’t anticipated for a number of weeks. Even a beneficial final result could go away the banker questioning if it had all been value bringing his ties to Epstein again into the highlight.
“You’ll be able to’t consider something extra prone to additional injury his fame than pursuing this case,” stated a number one UK monetary companies lawyer who requested to not be named due to shopper restrictions.
On the coronary heart of the case, which was held within the Higher Tribunal that hears regulatory challenges, is a brief letter Barclays chair Nigel Higgins despatched to the FCA in 2019 — authorized by Staley — that acknowledged his chief govt “didn’t have an in depth relationship” with Epstein and their final contact was “nicely earlier than” Staley had joined the UK financial institution in 2015.
The regulator was searching for reassurance that there was “no impropriety” in Staley’s relationship with Epstein.
The FCA banned Staley in 2023 for “recklessly” deceptive the regulator after his former employer JPMorgan Chase handed over a trove of greater than a thousand emails that it believed undermined the assurances Barclays had made within the letter. It was the second time the FCA had acted in opposition to the banker, having beforehand fined him in an unrelated case for trying to unmask an nameless whistleblower. Staley stepped down from the financial institution amid the Epstein probe in late 2021.
Epstein had been a key client of JPMorgan and remained one for a number of years following his preliminary conviction in Florida in 2008. Staley has insisted he didn’t foyer the financial institution to maintain him as a shopper and indicated through the listening to that Epstein had at instances recognized extra about what was taking place on the Wall Avenue behemoth than he did.
Proof adduced in courtroom included correspondence between Staley and Epstein infused with affectionate language. They included exchanges during which the 2 males referred to one another as “household”.
But the case is much from open-and-shut, authorized specialists stated.
One high monetary regulation lawyer not concerned within the case stated that regardless of the headlines, Staley had a path to victory. If the judges imagine he was utterly sincere within the witness field, that the FCA was not clear sufficient about what it needed, and that the accountability for drafting the letter actually lay with Higgins and Bob Hoyt, group normal counsel on the time, then the panel may discover in his favour.
Different legal professionals disagreed, citing the FCA’s catch-all requirement to be full and frank with the regulator.
Leigh-Ann Mulcahy KC, performing for the FCA, sought to point out Staley’s relationship with Epstein went past the anodyne description in Barclays’ letter.
The barrister pointed to exchanges between the 2 males during which Staley tells Epstein “I can’t inform you how a lot your friendship has meant to me” and Epstein apologises to the banker for “the complete warmth that you’ve got taken on account of our friendship”.
Below cross examination, Staley responded to lots of Mulcahy’s questions by saying he couldn’t recall conversations or occasions happening. His muted presence stood at odds with that of a swashbuckling funding banker who led one of many UK’s most necessary monetary establishments.
Staley maintained all through that he had a “shut skilled relationship” with Epstein, though at one level conceded he was a buddy. “He was a really shut skilled buddy however he was not in what I’d think about my inside circle of non-public associates,” he informed the courtroom.
Wrapping up the FCA’s case, Mulcahy stated Staley had “successfully argued that black is white” in insisting he didn’t have an in depth relationship with Epstein.
She additionally rounded on Staley’s efficiency through the trial, presenting him as an unreliable witness who gave contradictory and evasive solutions.
Staley’s authorized workforce argued the FCA had not confirmed its case that he had behaved with a reckless lack of integrity. His barrister, Robert Smith KC, argued the FCA’s preliminary enquiry in 2019 was too obscure.
Although Staley is on the centre of the authorized drama, a wider solid of characters have come below scrutiny for his or her actions, together with Jonathan Davidson, a former senior FCA official, Higgins and Hoyt.
Staley has laid accountability for the letter with Higgins and Hoyt, with whom he stated he had been “clear” about his ties to Epstein by way of numerous conversations with the 2 males and different senior executives at Barclays.
Higgins informed the courtroom he had “a distinct image” of Staley and Epstein’s relationship based mostly on the knowledge now accessible to him.
“You simply have to inform me, is there something about you and these ladies?” Higgins recalled asking Staley, even earlier than the FCA’s 2019 request. Higgins informed the courtroom that Staley replied that there was not.
The FCA doesn’t allege that Staley partook in Epstein’s crimes.
Briefly feedback within the closing days of the listening to, Choose Timothy Herrington, who’s presiding over Staley’s authorized problem, was important of the “casual” method FCA officers dealt with a few of their enquiries about his ties with Epstein.
“It was kicked off in an off-the-cuff method,” the choose stated, including it was “baffling” that the FCA had not made the complete nature of its enquiry clear from the outset.
The choose criticised the shortage of a correct file of a phone dialog between Davidson and Higgins. The case is Herrington’s final within the UK, he informed the tribunal.
Davidson known as Higgins whereas the chair was on a strolling vacation in Romania in August 2019 to hunt reassurance about Staley’s hyperlinks to Epstein. One lawyer described these casual exchanges as indicators that an “outdated boys community” nonetheless permeates within the banking trade.
Staley’s camp could maintain some inventory in the truth that Herrington has been a harsh critic of the FCA in recent times, together with when the tribunal overturned the FCA’s ban of three Julius Baer executives in 2023.
Staley’s final result shall be watched intently by the monetary companies trade, which has had little to go on by the use of courtroom rulings over non-financial misconduct. In 2021, a key determination from the tribunal {that a} felony conviction by itself was not sufficient to seek out somebody unfit to work within the trade, however have to be “qualitatively related” to their skilled life, got here as a shock to many.
Amongst these retaining an in depth eye on the end result shall be Crispin Odey, who made an unexpected visit to the courtroom final month and spoke to a lawyer for Staley.
The FCA banned the hedge fund founder days later and fined him £1.8mn for a “lack of integrity” in his conduct after he confronted allegations of sexual harassment and assault. Odey denies the allegations and is about to problem the regulator’s determination.
