Old ghosts of Staley – and Epstein – haunt Barclays once again
Barclays could be forgiven for thinking it was out of the woods after parting ways with its chief executive, Jes Staley, in 2021, amid regulators’ concerns over his relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
At the time, the board – which had already backed the boss over a separate whistleblower scandal in 2018 – seemed assured by Staley’s account of events. The bank even expressed disappointment over his departure as he prepared to challenge a (yet-to-be-released) UK investigation into the way he had characterised his ties to the disgraced financier.
But two years later, bosses as Barclays have been forced to backpedal, amid what they say are “new and serious allegations” laid out in lawsuits aimed at Staley and his former employer, JP Morgan. And as shareholders gear up for the Barclays AGM in London this week, bosses are steeling themselves for a grilling over whether they placed undue trust in the former chief executive.
The American banking boss first developed a relationship with Epstein in 2000 when he was hired to lead the private bank at JP Morgan, where Epstein was already a client. And while it is common for bankers to work closely with lucrative clients, Staley controversially stayed in touch with Epstein for seven years after the financier was convicted of soliciting prostitution from a minor in 2008. He visited Epstein in Florida while he was out on work release from his sentence in 2009.
The ex-Barclays boss said the relationship started to “taper off” after he left the US bank, with contact becoming “much less frequent” before ceasing altogether in 2015 – the year he joined Barclays. But the pair remained close enough that Staley’s final visit involved sailing his own yacht, the Bequia, to
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