Britain's banking regulator Thursday banned American James Staley, the former CEO of Barclay Bank, from the country's financial sector and fined him $2.2 million for misleading it over his friendship with the disgraced U.S. financier Jeffrey Epstein. File photo by Facundo Arrizabalaga/EPA-EFE
Oct. 12 (UPI) -- Britain's banking regulator banned former Barclays CEO James Staley on Thursday from any senior management job or position of significant influence in financial services for deceiving it over his friendship with the disgraced U.S. financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Staley was also fined $2.2 million after he was found he "recklessly" approved a Barclays letter to regulators containing two misleading statements about the nature of his relationship with Epstein and when they had last been in contact, the Financial Conduct Authority said in a news release.
The sanction and fine are suspended, pending an appeal to the independent Upper Tribunal by 66-year-old Staley who resigned in November 2021 after six years at the helm of the bank after the FCA published the preliminary findings of its investigation.
"A CEO needs to exercise sound judgment and set an example to staff at their firm. Mr. Staley failed to do this. We consider that he misled both the FCA and the Barclays Board about the nature of his relationship with Mr. Epstein," said Therese Chambers, joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA.
"Mr. Staley is an experienced industry professional and held a prominent position within financial services. It is right to prevent him from holding a senior position in the financial services industry if we cannot rely on him to act with integrity by disclosing uncomfortable truths about his close personal relationship with Mr. Epstein."
The agency said Barclay's written response to an August 2019 request for an explanation of what it had done to verify the relationship between Staley and Epstein was proper and correct, stated the pair were not close -- but in emails to Epstein, Staley told Epstein he regarded him as one of his "deepest" and "most cherished" friends.
The letter, which Staley signed off on as fair and accurate, also claimed contact with Epstein ceased long before he started work at Barclay in December 2015 when he was still communicating with Epstein in the days leading up to his appointment as CEO in late October 2015.
While Staley did not draft the letter personally, the FCA said there was no excuse for his failure to correct the misleading statements given he was the only person at Barclays who knew the true extent of his personal relationship with Epstein and the specific timings of the contacts between them.
The FCA said its investigation concluded that Staley was aware of the reputational risk that his association with Epstein posed to his career.
