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The former boss of Barclays Jes Staley discussed confidential agreements and customers with the deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, including details on the fraudster Bernard Madoff, according to a judicial file by the British financial watchdog.
The emails that Staley sent to Epstein were cited by the Financial Conduct Authority as proof that the banker had misleaded the regulator when he assured him that the pair “had no close relationship”.
When Staley worked at Jpmorgan Chase, before joining Barclays, he asked for advice from Epstein on how to withdraw a higher salary package from his boss Jamie Dimon and shared the non -public details of a customer from the bank’s bank American, said the FCA in her argument written against the former boss of Barclays.
Staley launched a judicial challenge against the FCA decision in 2023 to prohibit it from working in British financial services and to amend 1.8 million sterling pounds to him to have “misleading imprudent” and act “with A lack of integrity ”on the nature of his relationship with Epstein, a customer of the Wall St Bank.
Staley must testify in the case in March and faces three days, being questioned by the FCA lawyers, said a London court on Thursday during a prior exam.
The regulator declared that the details of email traffic between Staley and Epstein, which were first revealed in an American trial, argued his conclusion that the former boss of Barclays had provided “inaccurate and deceptive ”to the British regulator when they asked them questions about their relationship.
“Between 2008 and 2011, Staley shared confidential information relating to his former employer, JPMorgan with Epstein showing the proximity of their relationship and Staley’s desire to violate the obligations due to his employer, including where there was a conflict of ‘Interests between JPMorgan and Epstein, ”is said to be FCA.
He said that Epstein was transmitted to Staley an email written by Larry Summers, the former American secretary of the Treasury, asking: “What is the real story on Madoff? Shouldn’t JPM have known better? Madoff, a former American bank client, was sentenced to 150 years in prison in 2009 for orchestrated a PONZI program of $ 65 billion. He died in 2021.
The FCA said that Staley replied: “I cannot answer by email. Will call “, who, according to the regulators, said” he was ready to discuss the question with Mr. Epstein “.
The regulator said he found evidence that Epstein, who died in prison in 2019 after being arrested for accusations of sex trafficking minors, had “provided significant support” to Staley’s daughter in her education and her career and her invited her to her diploma in 2013.
In response to the FCA’s written argument, Staley admitted that the information he shared with Epstein was “not public information”, but denied that she was confidential in JPMorgan.
A letter sent by Barclays to the FCA and approved by Staley had assured the regulator that Staley stopped contact with Epstein “long before”, he joined the bank in 2015.
But the regulator said that Staley was in contact with Epstein in the days preceding his appointment as a general manager of Barclays announced in 2015 and that the sentenced sex offender tried to help him get the job.
In its last response to the court, the FCA said that contact between the two men was in fact continued in February 2017 “at least”, using the daughter of Staley, Alexa, as an intermediary.
Staley replied that the FCA did not fully take into account “sporadic nature” of emails exchanged between her daughter and Epstein, which took place over a period of 11 months and began five months after the last correspondence of the banker with Epstein.
The former boss of Barclays has put his inability to remember conversations with his daughter on emails at the “Passage of Time and her professional commitments”.
The 68 -year -old Staley lawyers argue that the FCA process was “unfair” and that the sanction he imposed was “largely disproportionate”.
The FCA decided to launch an investigation without giving Staley an opportunity to provide an explanation for “any apparent inconsistency” in its statements, they said.
In written arguments, Robert Smith KC, for Staley, said that the affirmation of the FCA according to which Staley was in contact with Epstein until 2017 via his daughter was “not supported by proof”.
He added that the FCA could not indicate that “a handful of opportunities” in which the two were socially interacted over a period of almost 10 years.
Staley met Epstein around 1999 around 1999 while the head of the private bank of JPMorgan, of which Epstein was a customer. Epstein was found guilty of having bought a minor for prostitution and sentenced to 18 months in a prison in Florida in 2008.
Leigh-Ann Mulcahy KC, representing the FCA, declared in legal documents that the Association of Staley with Epstein “inevitably raised questions about his conduct and judgment”. She said that the sanctions imposed in Staley were “appropriate” and “proportionate”.
