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The boss of Barclays just quit amid an investigation into his ties with Jeffrey Epsteinhtan@insider.com (Huileng Tan)
Barclays CEO Jes Staley. Pier Marco Tacca/Getty Images
Barclays on Monday said CEO Jes Staley was resigning amid a probe into his ties to Jeffrey Epstein.
Barclays said it had seen preliminary findings from the regulatory investigation on Friday.
UK regulators have been examining Staley's characterization of his ties to Epstein, Barclays said.
Barclays CEO Jes Staley is stepping down from the bank effective immediately amid a regulatory investigation into his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
Barclays said in a statement Monday that it was made aware of preliminary findings from the investigation, by UK financial regulators, on Friday evening.
The disgraced financier Epstein was arrested in July 2019 and charged with child sex trafficking. He was found dead in his jail cell a month later.
When Staley ran JPMorgan's private bank, Epstein regularly brought him business, Bloomberg reported a person familiar with the matter as saying.
Barclays on Monday said investigators were examining "Mr. Staley's characterization to Barclays of his relationship with the late Mr. Jeffrey Epstein and the subsequent description of that relationship in Barclays' response" to the UK Financial Conduct Authority.
Staley intended to "contest" the investigators' preliminary conclusions, Barclays said.
Barclays said: "It should be noted that the investigation makes no findings that Mr. Staley saw, or was aware of, any of Mr. Epstein's alleged crimes, which was the central question underpinning Barclays' support for Mr Staley following the arrest of Mr. Epstein in the summer of 2019."
Barclays said its board and Staley had agreed that he'd step down from his role as group CEO and as a director.
C.S. Venkatakrishnan, the head of global markets, is taking over as Barclays CEO effective immediately.
Staley's contract entitles him to receive his fixed pay of £2.4 million, or $3.3 million, in cash and Barclays shares until October 31 of next year, Barclays said.
Shares in Barclays fell by 3.4% in early trading in London on Monday.
Ex-Barclays CEO Jes Staley is one of many business figures with ties to Jeffrey Epstein
Max Zahn
·Reporter
Mon, November 1, 2021
Barclays (BCS) CEO Jes Staley is leaving the bank after an investigation by British authorities into his relationship with now-deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the bank announced on Monday.
The unpublished findings of the report from Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulatory Authority were shared with the bank on Friday. In light of the findings, as well as Staley's intention to contest them, the bank reached an agreement with Staley for his immediate departure, Reuters reported.
"It should be noted that the investigation makes no findings that Mr. Staley saw, or was aware of, any of Mr. Epstein's alleged crimes, which was the central question underpinning Barclays' support for Mr. Staley following the arrest of Mr. Epstein in the summer of 2019," the bank noted.
The friendship between Staley and Epstein, a well-connected financier, goes back to at least 1999, when Staley was in charge of private banking at JPMorgan, the New York Times reported. Epstein, a client of the bank, reportedly developed a relationship with Staley and helped bring JPMorgan other wealthy clients.
Barclays' CEO Jes Staley arrives at 10 Downing Street in London, Britain january 11, 2018. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls
Staley visited Epstein around 2010 in Florida while Epstein was serving time for a prostitution charge involving a minor, the Times found.
Last February, British banking authorities opened the investigation into Staley’s ties with Epstein. Soon afterward, Staley told reporters the relationship “tapered off quite significantly” after he left JPMorgan and that he “deeply regrets” his ties to Epstein.
Staley is hardly the only major business figure who knew Epstein, who died by suicide in a Manhattan jail in 2019 while being held on federal sex trafficking charges.
That group includes some of the private sector’s most prominent figures, among them former President Donald Trump and former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates. Here’s a list of some of the high-profile business people with ties to Epstein:
From left, American real estate developer Donald Trump and his girlfriend (and future wife), former model Melania Knauss, financier (and future convicted sex offender) Jeffrey Epstein, and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell pose together at the Mar-a-Lago club, Palm Beach, Florida, February 12, 2000. (Photo by Davidoff Studios/Getty Images)More
Donald Trump
The friendship between Trump and Epstein began in the 1980s and lasted nearly two decades, over which they partied multiple times at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida and at Epstein’s mansion on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, the Washington Post reported.
“I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,” Trump told New York Magazine in 2002. “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
The two had a falling out in 2004 over a Florida property dispute, the Washington Post found. After sex trafficking allegations were brought against Epstein, in 2019, Trump said he was “not a fan.” But Trump offered sympathy for Ghislaine Maxwell in July 2020, soon after the longtime companion of Epstein was arrested for multiple charges related to Epstein’s alleged sex-trafficking.
“I just wish her well, frankly,” Trump said.
Bill Gates
Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates met with Epstein on numerous occasions beginning in 2011 — years after Epstein was convicted of a sex crime, The New York Times reported. Gates visited Epstein at his Manhattan townhouse at least three times, one of which lasted well into the night, the Times found.
“His lifestyle is very different and kind of intriguing although it would not work for me,” Gates emailed coworkers in 2011, referring to Epstein, according to The Times. A spokeswoman for Gates, Bridgitt Arnold, told the Times that Gates had only been referring “to the unique décor of the Epstein residence — and Epstein’s habit of spontaneously bringing acquaintances in to meet Mr. Gates.”
Epstein discussed plans with JPMorgan Chase and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation about a potential multibillion-dollar fund, the Times reported, adding that employees of the Gates Foundation visited Epstein’s mansion on multiple occasions. The fund never came to be.
“Bill Gates regrets ever meeting with Epstein and recognizes it was an error in judgment to do so,” Arnold told the Times.
Leon Black, Chairman, CEO and Director, Apollo Global Management, LLC, speaks at the Milken Institute's 21st Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, U.S. May 1, 2018. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
Leon Black
Billionaire financier Leon Black, the co-founder of private equity giant Apollo Global Management, provided support for Epstein’s lavish lifestyle over a five-year period that ended in 2017 — long after Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida to a prostitution charge involving a teenage girl, a company review found, according to The New York Times. That report noted that Black viewed Epstein as a “confirmed bachelor with eclectic tastes.”
Black announced in January that he would soon step down as CEO of the firm after the review unearthed more than $150 million in payments to Epstein. (Apollo Global Management acquired Yahoo Finance parent company Verizon Media, now known as Yahoo, in 2021.)
Leslie Wexner
Leslie Wexner, the billionaire founder of the L Brands retail conglomerate that includes Victoria’s Secret, hired Epstein as a money manager in the 1980s, according to The New York Times.
The exact details of Epstein’s role remain murky but appear to have extended beyond money management, including assistance with designing Wexner’s 316-foot yacht and leadership positions in his philanthropic foundations, The New York Times reported.
In a letter sent to L Brands employees in July 2019, Wexner said he was “NEVER aware of the illegal activity charged in the indictment,” the Times found.
Mort Zuckerman, chairman of the board of directors of Boston Properties, Inc., speaks at the Wharton Economic Summit in New York February 1, 2006. As part of the Wharton business school event, senior faculty, alumni and industry leaders tackle major topics that impact businesses around the world. REUTERS/Chip EastMore
Mort Zuckerman
Mort Zuckerman, billionaire media mogul and former owner of the “New York Daily News,” partnered with Epstein as an investor of millions in a pop culture magazine called “Radar” in 2004.
Max Zahn
·Reporter
Mon, November 1, 2021
Barclays (BCS) CEO Jes Staley is leaving the bank after an investigation by British authorities into his relationship with now-deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, the bank announced on Monday.
The unpublished findings of the report from Britain’s Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulatory Authority were shared with the bank on Friday. In light of the findings, as well as Staley's intention to contest them, the bank reached an agreement with Staley for his immediate departure, Reuters reported.
"It should be noted that the investigation makes no findings that Mr. Staley saw, or was aware of, any of Mr. Epstein's alleged crimes, which was the central question underpinning Barclays' support for Mr. Staley following the arrest of Mr. Epstein in the summer of 2019," the bank noted.
The friendship between Staley and Epstein, a well-connected financier, goes back to at least 1999, when Staley was in charge of private banking at JPMorgan, the New York Times reported. Epstein, a client of the bank, reportedly developed a relationship with Staley and helped bring JPMorgan other wealthy clients.
Barclays' CEO Jes Staley arrives at 10 Downing Street in London, Britain january 11, 2018. REUTERS/Peter Nicholls
Staley visited Epstein around 2010 in Florida while Epstein was serving time for a prostitution charge involving a minor, the Times found.
Last February, British banking authorities opened the investigation into Staley’s ties with Epstein. Soon afterward, Staley told reporters the relationship “tapered off quite significantly” after he left JPMorgan and that he “deeply regrets” his ties to Epstein.
Staley is hardly the only major business figure who knew Epstein, who died by suicide in a Manhattan jail in 2019 while being held on federal sex trafficking charges.
That group includes some of the private sector’s most prominent figures, among them former President Donald Trump and former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates. Here’s a list of some of the high-profile business people with ties to Epstein:
From left, American real estate developer Donald Trump and his girlfriend (and future wife), former model Melania Knauss, financier (and future convicted sex offender) Jeffrey Epstein, and British socialite Ghislaine Maxwell pose together at the Mar-a-Lago club, Palm Beach, Florida, February 12, 2000. (Photo by Davidoff Studios/Getty Images)More
Donald Trump
The friendship between Trump and Epstein began in the 1980s and lasted nearly two decades, over which they partied multiple times at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach, Florida and at Epstein’s mansion on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, the Washington Post reported.
“I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,” Trump told New York Magazine in 2002. “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.”
The two had a falling out in 2004 over a Florida property dispute, the Washington Post found. After sex trafficking allegations were brought against Epstein, in 2019, Trump said he was “not a fan.” But Trump offered sympathy for Ghislaine Maxwell in July 2020, soon after the longtime companion of Epstein was arrested for multiple charges related to Epstein’s alleged sex-trafficking.
“I just wish her well, frankly,” Trump said.
Bill Gates
Billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates met with Epstein on numerous occasions beginning in 2011 — years after Epstein was convicted of a sex crime, The New York Times reported. Gates visited Epstein at his Manhattan townhouse at least three times, one of which lasted well into the night, the Times found.
“His lifestyle is very different and kind of intriguing although it would not work for me,” Gates emailed coworkers in 2011, referring to Epstein, according to The Times. A spokeswoman for Gates, Bridgitt Arnold, told the Times that Gates had only been referring “to the unique décor of the Epstein residence — and Epstein’s habit of spontaneously bringing acquaintances in to meet Mr. Gates.”
Epstein discussed plans with JPMorgan Chase and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation about a potential multibillion-dollar fund, the Times reported, adding that employees of the Gates Foundation visited Epstein’s mansion on multiple occasions. The fund never came to be.
“Bill Gates regrets ever meeting with Epstein and recognizes it was an error in judgment to do so,” Arnold told the Times.
Leon Black, Chairman, CEO and Director, Apollo Global Management, LLC, speaks at the Milken Institute's 21st Global Conference in Beverly Hills, California, U.S. May 1, 2018. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson
Leon Black
Billionaire financier Leon Black, the co-founder of private equity giant Apollo Global Management, provided support for Epstein’s lavish lifestyle over a five-year period that ended in 2017 — long after Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida to a prostitution charge involving a teenage girl, a company review found, according to The New York Times. That report noted that Black viewed Epstein as a “confirmed bachelor with eclectic tastes.”
Black announced in January that he would soon step down as CEO of the firm after the review unearthed more than $150 million in payments to Epstein. (Apollo Global Management acquired Yahoo Finance parent company Verizon Media, now known as Yahoo, in 2021.)
Leslie Wexner
Leslie Wexner, the billionaire founder of the L Brands retail conglomerate that includes Victoria’s Secret, hired Epstein as a money manager in the 1980s, according to The New York Times.
The exact details of Epstein’s role remain murky but appear to have extended beyond money management, including assistance with designing Wexner’s 316-foot yacht and leadership positions in his philanthropic foundations, The New York Times reported.
In a letter sent to L Brands employees in July 2019, Wexner said he was “NEVER aware of the illegal activity charged in the indictment,” the Times found.
Mort Zuckerman, chairman of the board of directors of Boston Properties, Inc., speaks at the Wharton Economic Summit in New York February 1, 2006. As part of the Wharton business school event, senior faculty, alumni and industry leaders tackle major topics that impact businesses around the world. REUTERS/Chip EastMore
Mort Zuckerman
Mort Zuckerman, billionaire media mogul and former owner of the “New York Daily News,” partnered with Epstein as an investor of millions in a pop culture magazine called “Radar” in 2004.
How many more will be caught in Jeffrey Epstein's web?
Ben Wright
Mon, November 1, 2021
Jeffrey Epstein
It is more than two years since Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender, hanged himself in the New York prison cell where he was awaiting trial. But his ghost continues to cast a long shadow over his victims and all those with whom he had even the briefest association while alive.
And that includes a lot of people – many of them rich, powerful, famous, or all three. Epstein was a networker par excellence, with ties to celebrities, academics, politicians, film stars and royals, including Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and Prince Andrew.
No one, understandably, now wants to admit having been friends with a paedophile. Some of the names who appear in Epstein’s infamous “little black book”, a Rolodex of global high society, have told reporters they never even met him, let alone socialised with him.
It may well be that some of those contacts were compiled by Epstein’s staff, including the socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, and included aspirational connections as well as real ones. But might some of Epstein’s past acquaintances have downplayed their relationship with the man to the point of dishonesty? And will it be the cover-ups that come back to bite them?
It is a thin line that was most obviously tip-toed by Prince Andrew in the 2019 interview he gave to the BBC’s Emily Maitlis. The Prince said he and Epstein were not “close friends” – but he nevertheless admitted travelling on Epstein’s private plane and staying on his private island. Asked whether he had invited the financier to a party, the Prince corrected Maitlis: “It was a shooting weekend … a straightforward shooting weekend.”
Many other famous and powerful people will continue to be probed about their relationships with the dead paedophile for years to come as the ripples from the scandal spread ever-further. And, given the huge attention this story has garnered, their answers will be checked and cross-checked.
On Monday, Jes Staley stepped down as the boss of Barclays, one of the UK’s big four high street banks, following an investigation by the UK’s main financial watchdogs into whether he has told the truth about his relationship with Epstein.
Staley has always maintained his association with the disgraced financier was purely professional. But questions have been raised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority about his characterisation of their dealings.
The FCA is responsible for deciding whether executives are “fit and proper” to lead the organisations under its purview. The watchdog has the power to issue unlimited fines and to ban people from working in the City.
Jes Staley - REUTERS/Peter Nicholls/File Photo
Staley has not been accused of any crime. In a statement on Monday, the bank said: “It should be noted that the investigation makes no findings that Mr Staley saw, or was aware of, any of Mr Epstein’s alleged crimes, which was the central question underpinning Barclays’ support for Mr Staley following the arrest of Mr Epstein in the summer of 2019.”
This much we know. Staley first got to know Epstein when he was running the private bank at JP Morgan, a huge Wall Street lender. Private banks manage money for the ultra-wealthy – Epstein’s milieu.
Epstein was a client but he also introduced Staley to other rich people, including Glenn Dubin, the co-founder of a hedge fund called Highbridge Capital Management, which JPMorgan subsequently bought.
This was Epstein’s standard operating procedure. No relationship was straightforward. He constantly and deliberately mixed the professional with the private. He made introductions. He did favours in the hope they would be reciprocated.
His relationships highlight a grey area in the upper echelons of society among the global elite who are always on duty. High-powered executives can legitimately claim they are always working if the person they meet at a party one night could easily end up becoming a client at a later date. Many captains of industry and finance host events in their own homes and then expense the bill.
Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell - Joe Schildhorn/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
But the legions of individuals who enjoyed Epstein’s hospitality will inevitably face questions about how well they knew him, why they were unable to detect something rotten about the man, and whether they ever saw anything untowards at one of his parties.
It is known that Staley twice sailed on his yacht with his wife, Debora, to Epstein’s private Caribbean island, Little St James. Staley’s last visit to the island was just seven months before he joined Barclays in December 2015. But it is also long after he had left JPMorgan in 2013. If the relationship was purely professional, what did they discuss over lunch?
At this point, Epstein was already a registered sex offender. He pleaded guilty to procuring a child for prostitution and of soliciting a prostitute and was convicted by a Florida state court in 2008, a crime for which he served nearly 13 months in custody.
In 2019, he was then charged by federal prosecutors with one count of sex trafficking of a minor and one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking. Prosecutors in the US Virgin Islands had separately alleged Epstein brought girls as young as 11 to his property on Little St James and abused them, but he was found dead in his New York cell, in August 2019, before he could again face justice.
It was at this point that the FCA inquired about Staley’s relationship with Epstein. The Barclays boss gave his explanation to the bank’s chairman Nigel Higgins, and the bank responded to the watchdog. The FCA launched a formal investigation in 2020. The regulator subsequently received a cache of emails from JPMorgan.
The FCA is not commenting on its probe. However, people familiar with how this kind of case is typically handled say that a draft decision, which contains the FCA’s conclusions and any penalties it is potentially planning to bring, is usually presented to the individual under investigation.
From the statement released by Barclays, it appears that Staley received this document on Friday. Staley has said he will contest the findings, and is stepping down from his job to concentrate on defending himself. The mere fact that he is contesting the conclusions of the investigation would strongly suggest they are unflattering.
The case will now go before the FCA’s Regulatory Decisions Committee, which will rule on whether to uphold the FCA decision. This process will likely take months. The FCA will likely only reveal its findings if the decision is upheld. If that is then the case, Staley could appeal again to a tribunal.
It is understood that the FCA’s action has come as a shock to Barclays. Staley was due to represent the bank at the COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow this week. The bank will now be run by CS Venkatakrishnan, known as Venkat, head of the global markets trading unit at the bank and a long-time lieutenant of Staley’s.
C.S. Venkatakrishnan of Barclays bank - Barclays
But the reverberations of this shock decision will likely be felt long beyond the UK’s banks headquarters in Canary Wharf. How many more rich and powerful people are cursing the day they were ever introduced to Epstein, and reviewing how they have characterised their relationship with him since he died?
It is understandable that even those who did nothing wrong will worry their reputations might be tarnished by association with a man who prosecutors allege sexually assaulted girls as young as 14 years old. The questions are all the more difficult for those who continued to associate with Epstein after his 2008 conviction.
The aftershocks of the scandal have been rumbling for months. In March, Leon Black unexpectedly stepped down as the boss of Apollo Global Management, the powerful Wall Street investment firm he founded, following an inquiry into his ties to Epstein.
Black is said to have severed ties with Epstein in 2018 in the wake of a “fee dispute”, after which the two men ceased communicating and Black terminated using Epstein’s services.
But an independent review found Black paid Epstein a total of $148m for his financial advising services between 2012 and 2017. This may have been small change for a man who once paid nearly $120m for one of the four pastel versions of Edvard Munch’s The Scream.
But there have long been questions about the kind of advice Epstein, a college drop-out, was giving one of the most successful investors of his generation. According to Black’s spokeswoman, he now “deeply regrets having any involvement with [Epstein]”.
Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder, got to know Epstein around the beginning of 2011, something about which his wife, Melinda French Gates, was reportedly uncomfortable even at the time, according to The New York Times. The two men’s relationship became public in 2019. This is said to have been one of the catalysts for French Gates to hire divorce lawyers.
In interviews since, Bill Gates has said he had several dinners with Epstein in the hope of raising money for charity through his contacts. He said he broke off the relationship when it didn’t look like that would happen. “It was a huge mistake to spend time with him, to give him the credibility,” the billionaire told CNN in August. “I made a mistake.”
In February last year, Les Wexner, one of Epstein’s early clients, stepped down as the boss of L Brands, the company that owns Victoria’s Secret, in the wake of several multiple internal investigations. It is understood that Wexner gave Epstein sweeping powers over his finances, including allowing him to borrow money on his behalf and sign his tax returns.
It has been separately reported that Epstein identified himself to women as a talent scout for Victoria’s Secret and invited them to his hotel room to audition for the brand’s catalogue.
At his company's annual investor conference in 2019, Wexner said: “Being taken advantage of by someone who was so sick, so cunning, so depraved is something that I am embarrassed that I was even close to, but that is in the past. At some point in your life, we are all betrayed by friends, and if we haven’t, we’re really fortunate to have lived a perfectly sheltered life.”
Epstein also cultivated politicians such as Bill Clinton, who, a spokesman confirmed, took several trips on Epstein’s private jet (dubbed the “Lolita Express”); and Donald Trump, who described Epstein as a “terrific guy”.
A spokesman for the former president tweeted in 2019 that: “President Clinton knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York.
In 2002 and 2003, President Clinton took a total of four trips on Jeffrey Epstein’s airplane: one to Europe, one to Asia, and two to Africa, which included stops in connection with the work of the Clinton Foundation.”
Trump told New York magazine in 2002 that: “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.” During his term in office, the now-former US president repeatedly offered well wishes to Ghislaine Maxwell, who is in an American prison awaiting trial on charges she procured teenage girls for Epstein.
The late financier’s tentacles reached into almost every facet of high business, finance and high society. Guests as varied as the director Woody Allen, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, magician David Blaine and British politician Peter Mandelson are understood to have dined at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse.
The likes of Kevin Spacey and Chris Tucker flew on his plane. Professor Stephen Hawking attended a barbeque on his Caribbean island and took a ride in a submarine that Epstein had specially modified.
Many of those who knew Epstein and have since downplayed their relationship with the sex offender, can at least comfort themselves they are not under the purview of the FCA. There will be no regulator deciding whether they are “fit and proper”.
However, the media scrutiny is unlikely to lessen and the court of public opinion is always in session. It is unlikely that Prince Andrew will be the only person not sweating.
Ben Wright
Mon, November 1, 2021
Jeffrey Epstein
It is more than two years since Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender, hanged himself in the New York prison cell where he was awaiting trial. But his ghost continues to cast a long shadow over his victims and all those with whom he had even the briefest association while alive.
And that includes a lot of people – many of them rich, powerful, famous, or all three. Epstein was a networker par excellence, with ties to celebrities, academics, politicians, film stars and royals, including Bill Clinton, Donald Trump and Prince Andrew.
No one, understandably, now wants to admit having been friends with a paedophile. Some of the names who appear in Epstein’s infamous “little black book”, a Rolodex of global high society, have told reporters they never even met him, let alone socialised with him.
It may well be that some of those contacts were compiled by Epstein’s staff, including the socialite Ghislaine Maxwell, and included aspirational connections as well as real ones. But might some of Epstein’s past acquaintances have downplayed their relationship with the man to the point of dishonesty? And will it be the cover-ups that come back to bite them?
It is a thin line that was most obviously tip-toed by Prince Andrew in the 2019 interview he gave to the BBC’s Emily Maitlis. The Prince said he and Epstein were not “close friends” – but he nevertheless admitted travelling on Epstein’s private plane and staying on his private island. Asked whether he had invited the financier to a party, the Prince corrected Maitlis: “It was a shooting weekend … a straightforward shooting weekend.”
Many other famous and powerful people will continue to be probed about their relationships with the dead paedophile for years to come as the ripples from the scandal spread ever-further. And, given the huge attention this story has garnered, their answers will be checked and cross-checked.
On Monday, Jes Staley stepped down as the boss of Barclays, one of the UK’s big four high street banks, following an investigation by the UK’s main financial watchdogs into whether he has told the truth about his relationship with Epstein.
Staley has always maintained his association with the disgraced financier was purely professional. But questions have been raised by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority about his characterisation of their dealings.
The FCA is responsible for deciding whether executives are “fit and proper” to lead the organisations under its purview. The watchdog has the power to issue unlimited fines and to ban people from working in the City.
Jes Staley - REUTERS/Peter Nicholls/File Photo
Staley has not been accused of any crime. In a statement on Monday, the bank said: “It should be noted that the investigation makes no findings that Mr Staley saw, or was aware of, any of Mr Epstein’s alleged crimes, which was the central question underpinning Barclays’ support for Mr Staley following the arrest of Mr Epstein in the summer of 2019.”
This much we know. Staley first got to know Epstein when he was running the private bank at JP Morgan, a huge Wall Street lender. Private banks manage money for the ultra-wealthy – Epstein’s milieu.
Epstein was a client but he also introduced Staley to other rich people, including Glenn Dubin, the co-founder of a hedge fund called Highbridge Capital Management, which JPMorgan subsequently bought.
This was Epstein’s standard operating procedure. No relationship was straightforward. He constantly and deliberately mixed the professional with the private. He made introductions. He did favours in the hope they would be reciprocated.
His relationships highlight a grey area in the upper echelons of society among the global elite who are always on duty. High-powered executives can legitimately claim they are always working if the person they meet at a party one night could easily end up becoming a client at a later date. Many captains of industry and finance host events in their own homes and then expense the bill.
Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell - Joe Schildhorn/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
But the legions of individuals who enjoyed Epstein’s hospitality will inevitably face questions about how well they knew him, why they were unable to detect something rotten about the man, and whether they ever saw anything untowards at one of his parties.
It is known that Staley twice sailed on his yacht with his wife, Debora, to Epstein’s private Caribbean island, Little St James. Staley’s last visit to the island was just seven months before he joined Barclays in December 2015. But it is also long after he had left JPMorgan in 2013. If the relationship was purely professional, what did they discuss over lunch?
At this point, Epstein was already a registered sex offender. He pleaded guilty to procuring a child for prostitution and of soliciting a prostitute and was convicted by a Florida state court in 2008, a crime for which he served nearly 13 months in custody.
In 2019, he was then charged by federal prosecutors with one count of sex trafficking of a minor and one count of conspiracy to commit sex trafficking. Prosecutors in the US Virgin Islands had separately alleged Epstein brought girls as young as 11 to his property on Little St James and abused them, but he was found dead in his New York cell, in August 2019, before he could again face justice.
It was at this point that the FCA inquired about Staley’s relationship with Epstein. The Barclays boss gave his explanation to the bank’s chairman Nigel Higgins, and the bank responded to the watchdog. The FCA launched a formal investigation in 2020. The regulator subsequently received a cache of emails from JPMorgan.
The FCA is not commenting on its probe. However, people familiar with how this kind of case is typically handled say that a draft decision, which contains the FCA’s conclusions and any penalties it is potentially planning to bring, is usually presented to the individual under investigation.
From the statement released by Barclays, it appears that Staley received this document on Friday. Staley has said he will contest the findings, and is stepping down from his job to concentrate on defending himself. The mere fact that he is contesting the conclusions of the investigation would strongly suggest they are unflattering.
The case will now go before the FCA’s Regulatory Decisions Committee, which will rule on whether to uphold the FCA decision. This process will likely take months. The FCA will likely only reveal its findings if the decision is upheld. If that is then the case, Staley could appeal again to a tribunal.
It is understood that the FCA’s action has come as a shock to Barclays. Staley was due to represent the bank at the COP26 climate change conference in Glasgow this week. The bank will now be run by CS Venkatakrishnan, known as Venkat, head of the global markets trading unit at the bank and a long-time lieutenant of Staley’s.
C.S. Venkatakrishnan of Barclays bank - Barclays
But the reverberations of this shock decision will likely be felt long beyond the UK’s banks headquarters in Canary Wharf. How many more rich and powerful people are cursing the day they were ever introduced to Epstein, and reviewing how they have characterised their relationship with him since he died?
It is understandable that even those who did nothing wrong will worry their reputations might be tarnished by association with a man who prosecutors allege sexually assaulted girls as young as 14 years old. The questions are all the more difficult for those who continued to associate with Epstein after his 2008 conviction.
The aftershocks of the scandal have been rumbling for months. In March, Leon Black unexpectedly stepped down as the boss of Apollo Global Management, the powerful Wall Street investment firm he founded, following an inquiry into his ties to Epstein.
Black is said to have severed ties with Epstein in 2018 in the wake of a “fee dispute”, after which the two men ceased communicating and Black terminated using Epstein’s services.
But an independent review found Black paid Epstein a total of $148m for his financial advising services between 2012 and 2017. This may have been small change for a man who once paid nearly $120m for one of the four pastel versions of Edvard Munch’s The Scream.
But there have long been questions about the kind of advice Epstein, a college drop-out, was giving one of the most successful investors of his generation. According to Black’s spokeswoman, he now “deeply regrets having any involvement with [Epstein]”.
Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder, got to know Epstein around the beginning of 2011, something about which his wife, Melinda French Gates, was reportedly uncomfortable even at the time, according to The New York Times. The two men’s relationship became public in 2019. This is said to have been one of the catalysts for French Gates to hire divorce lawyers.
In interviews since, Bill Gates has said he had several dinners with Epstein in the hope of raising money for charity through his contacts. He said he broke off the relationship when it didn’t look like that would happen. “It was a huge mistake to spend time with him, to give him the credibility,” the billionaire told CNN in August. “I made a mistake.”
In February last year, Les Wexner, one of Epstein’s early clients, stepped down as the boss of L Brands, the company that owns Victoria’s Secret, in the wake of several multiple internal investigations. It is understood that Wexner gave Epstein sweeping powers over his finances, including allowing him to borrow money on his behalf and sign his tax returns.
It has been separately reported that Epstein identified himself to women as a talent scout for Victoria’s Secret and invited them to his hotel room to audition for the brand’s catalogue.
At his company's annual investor conference in 2019, Wexner said: “Being taken advantage of by someone who was so sick, so cunning, so depraved is something that I am embarrassed that I was even close to, but that is in the past. At some point in your life, we are all betrayed by friends, and if we haven’t, we’re really fortunate to have lived a perfectly sheltered life.”
Epstein also cultivated politicians such as Bill Clinton, who, a spokesman confirmed, took several trips on Epstein’s private jet (dubbed the “Lolita Express”); and Donald Trump, who described Epstein as a “terrific guy”.
A spokesman for the former president tweeted in 2019 that: “President Clinton knows nothing about the terrible crimes Jeffrey Epstein pleaded guilty to in Florida some years ago, or those with which he has been recently charged in New York.
In 2002 and 2003, President Clinton took a total of four trips on Jeffrey Epstein’s airplane: one to Europe, one to Asia, and two to Africa, which included stops in connection with the work of the Clinton Foundation.”
Trump told New York magazine in 2002 that: “It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side.” During his term in office, the now-former US president repeatedly offered well wishes to Ghislaine Maxwell, who is in an American prison awaiting trial on charges she procured teenage girls for Epstein.
The late financier’s tentacles reached into almost every facet of high business, finance and high society. Guests as varied as the director Woody Allen, Google co-founder Sergey Brin, magician David Blaine and British politician Peter Mandelson are understood to have dined at Epstein’s Manhattan townhouse.
The likes of Kevin Spacey and Chris Tucker flew on his plane. Professor Stephen Hawking attended a barbeque on his Caribbean island and took a ride in a submarine that Epstein had specially modified.
Many of those who knew Epstein and have since downplayed their relationship with the sex offender, can at least comfort themselves they are not under the purview of the FCA. There will be no regulator deciding whether they are “fit and proper”.
However, the media scrutiny is unlikely to lessen and the court of public opinion is always in session. It is unlikely that Prince Andrew will be the only person not sweating.
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