The U.K.’s Financial Conduct Authority fined former Barclays CEO Jes Staley £1.8 million ($2.2 million) and banned him from holding senior positions in the financial industry for misleading regulators about his relationship with the late disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, the regulator said Thursday.
“The FCA has found that Mr Staley recklessly approved a letter sent by Barclays to the FCA, which contained two misleading statements, about the nature of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein and the point of their last contact,” the regulator said in a statement Thursday.
In light of the FCA’s findings, Staley should forfeit or be ineligible for deferred bonuses and long-term incentive pay totaling £17.8 million, Barclays said in a separate statement Thursday.
“We support the FCA’s decision announced today against Jes Staley,” Barclays said Thursday. “It is imperative that senior managers act with integrity and are open and cooperative with the regulators.”
Barclays said it was not the subject of the FCA probe, and the regulator’s decision did not involve any findings against the bank or any of its current directors or employees. It also said it fully cooperated with the investigation.
The FCA asked Barclays in August 2019 to explain what the bank did to satisfy that Staley had no improper relationship. In response, Staley approved a letter claiming he did not have a close relationship with Epstein. But email exchanges between the two men have shown Staley describing Epstein as his “deepest” and “most cherished” friend and that they stayed in contact until Staley’s appointment as CEO of Barclays in 2015.
Staley did not draft the letter, but he did not correct misleading information in the letter either, according to the FCA.
Staley said Thursday he was “disappointed” by the FCA’s decision and would continue to challenge it, Reuters reported.
“If I had known who JE really was, there is absolutely no doubt that I wouldn’t be in the position I am in today,” Staley said in a statement issued by his law firm Arnold & Porter.
Before his stint at Barclays, Staley served as private-banking chief at JPMorgan Chase, where Epstein was a client until 2013. Staley was deposed this year as part of a court case in which the U.S. Virgin Islands sued JPMorgan, asserting the bank was aware of suspicious activity by Epstein but failed to report it.
JPMorgan agreed last month to pay $75 million to settle the lawsuit. The bank in June reached a $290 million settlement with an undisclosed number of victims of sex charges connected to Epstein, who died in prison in 2019.
Staley was aware that links to Epstein posed a risk to his career, the FCA noted.
“A CEO needs to exercise sound judgment and set an example to staff at their firm. Mr Staley failed to do this,” Therese Chambers, joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, said in a statement. “We consider that he misled both the FCA and the Barclays Board about the nature of his relationship with Mr Epstein.”
Staley “confirmed to the Board that he has had no contact whatsoever with Mr. Epstein at any time since taking up his role as Barclays Group CEO in December 2015,” the bank said in February 2020. Staley stepped down from the bank in November 2021 following the preliminary results of the FCA’s investigation.
