- Former Barclays CEO Jes Staley is looking to close the book on scrutiny into his relationship with disgraced hedge fund manager Jeffrey Epstein. On Monday, Staley will contest a ban from the UK watchdog Financial Conduct Authority, which barred him in 2023 from becoming the head of any financial services firm in the UK.
Jes Staley, the former CEO of Barclays, is hoping to conclude a yearslong fight with a UK financial watchdog over his connection with disgraced hedge fund manager Jeffrey Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial for federal child sex trafficking charges.
In October 2023, the Financial Conduct Authority, an independent UK regulator, fined Staley for $2.2 million (£1.8 million) and banned him from holding a senior management role in any UK financial services business after finding he had misled regulators about his relationship with Epstein. Staley, who ran Barclays from 2015 to 2021, will appeal the ban in London's Upper Tribunal starting March 3 in an effort to clear his name.
The case is a culmination of a multi-year back and forth between Staley, who has denied knowledge of Epstein’s history of sex crimes, and the FCA, which outlined in a 79-page dossier a three-year investigation into Staley’s ties with Epstein. Staley stepped down as Barclays CEO in 2021 after the FCA launched its investigation the year prior.
“If I had known who [Epstein] really was, there is absolutely no doubt that I wouldn’t be in the position I am in today,” Staley said in a statement after the FCA’s ban announcement.
Staley’s lawyer and the FCA did not respond to Fortune’s requests for comment. The FCA made a statement setting out its case against Staley in 2023. "The FCA considers that, in failing to correct the misleading statements [he made], Mr Staley recklessly misled the FCA and acted with a lack of integrity," the agency said.
The White House is set to release files related to Epstein on Thursday after Attorney General Pam Bondi faced mounting pressure from both Republicans and Democrats to disclose the list of clients of the sexual predator. The files will also include flight logs and “a lot of information,” according to Bondi.
Staley’s choice to contest the FCA’s ban is reportedly much to the chagrin of some friends and former associates in Staley’s orbit, who believe the appeal will poke a hornet’s nest of details outlining Staley’s association with Epstein. Court filings also include mentions of Britain’s Prince Andrew, criminal financier Bernie Madoff, and former U.S. treasury secretary Larry Summers.
“[Staley] has a family, a nice house in the Hamptons, a yacht and more money than god,” a former Barclays colleague of Staley told the Financial Times. “Let it go.”
Staley’s tangled ties with Epstein
The FCA’s scrutiny of Staley’s relationship with Epstein reached a boiling point in 2019, when the regulator received a letter from Barclays that was “recklessly approved” by Staley, containing two misleading statements, according to the watchdog. The letter claimed the two did not have a close relationship. Staley had said correspondence to Epstein had stopped “well before he joined Barclays” in December 2015.
The FCA then discovered more than 1,100 emails between Staley and Epstein from between 2008 and 2012, in which Staley called Epstein one of his “most cherished” friends. Staley had also visited Epstein’s private island in the U.S. Virgin Islands as recently as 2015, his third trip to the locale that has been heavily associated with Epstein’s sex-trafficking activity.
Staley’s relationship with Epstein dates back to 2000, when Staley was head of JPMorgan’s private-banking arm; the bank had taken on Epstein as a client. Epstein continued to work with JPMorgan until 2008, when he was indicted in Florida on charges of soliciting minors. JPMorgan sued Staley in March 2023, alleging he aided Epstein in covering up years of sex trafficking and abuse in order to keep him on as a client.
The FCA has since heaped on evidence against Staley, including emails from Epstein claiming the two were in touch as late as 2017, as well as emails indicating Staley’s eldest daughter Alexa facilitated the passage of messages between Staley and Epstein in 2016, Bloomberg reported last month.
Correction: This story initially misstated who Leigh-Ann Mulcahy KC represents in this case. She acts for the FCA.
