Ex-Barclays boss Staley loses bid to overturn UK ban over Epstein ties

LONDON — The former chief executive of Barclays Bank, Jes Staley, lost a legal challenge Thursday against a 2023 decision by Britain's financial regulator to ban him from holding senior financial roles in the United Kingdom for misleading it over the nature of his relationship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The case centered on a letter sent from Barclays to the Financial Conduct Authority in 2019, which claimed that Staley did not have a “close relationship” with Epstein and that their last contact was “well before” he joined the bank in December 2015.

He left the bank in 2021 following criticism of his ties to Epstein, who killed himself in a federal jail in August 2019, a month after his arrest on federal sex trafficking and conspiracy charges.

The regulator had found that the letter was misleading and that Staley acted “recklessly and without integrity” by allowing it to be sent. Lawyers for the regulator told the tribunal in March that Staley and Epstein had a “friendship” and maintained contact through Staley’s daughter up to at least February 2017.

In its ruling, the tribunal said it would have expected Staley, 68, to have been “particularly careful” in ensuring the letter was accurate, and that his breaches of FCA rules represented “a serious failure of judgment.”

It added that they saw “no basis” on which it should interfere with the decision to ban Staley, which was “a course of action reasonably open” to the FCA.

The judgment also said that Staley had shown “no remorse for his conduct.”

In addition to the ban, Staley, a U.S. citizen, had been fined 1.8 million pounds ($2.5 million) by the regulator. The tribunal did reduce that to around 1.1 million pounds.

Staley's lawyers said that he “never attempted to conceal" his relationship with Epstein, a claim unanimously dismissed by the three-person tribunal in London.

Over the course of the hearing earlier this year, Staley admitted having a close professional relationship with Epstein. He had acted as a private banker to the disgraced financier during his previous time at JP Morgan Chase, but insisted they were not personally close.

Following the FCA’s decision in Oct. 2023, Barclays said Staley would not be eligible for, or would forfeit, bonuses and share awards totaling 17.8 million pounds. It had already suspended all of Staley’s deferred bonuses and long-term share awards while the watchdog investigated.

JP Morgan Chase has also agreed to pay $75 million to the U.S. Virgin Islands to settle claims that the bank enabled Epstein’s sex-trafficking acts. It also reached a confidential settlement with Staley, who it had sued for allegedly concealing his personal activities with Epstein from the bank.