Why did Jes Staley, the outgoing boss of Barclays, go to visit Jeffrey Epstein in prison in 2009, when he was convicted of sexual assault on minors? Why did he travel, in 2015, with his personal yacht to the private Caribbean island owned by the former American pedophile billionaire, who committed suicide in prison in 2019? These are two of the questions Mr. Staley clearly did not answer satisfactorily. Monday 1er November, he was forced to resign from his post as managing director of UK bank Barclays.
Mr. Staley is not suspected of having been an accomplice in the sex trafficking of young teenage girls carried out by the former American billionaire. He is also not under judicial investigation. On the other hand, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), the British financial regulator, wonders: why did he want him to believe that his relations with Mr. Epstein were simply professional? It is for having potentially lied to him that the director of the second British bank had to leave his post.
The history of the relationship between the two Americans begins in the late 1990s. At the time, Mr. Staley runs the pole private bank by JPMorgan. One of his big clients is Mr. Epstein, whose fortune is considerable. The two men then remain in contact, while Mr. Staley rises in the hierarchy of the American establishment: boss of the asset management branch, boss of the investment bank …
“I deeply regret”
In 2015, the American was recruited by Barclays. The British bank then barely recovered from the shock of the 2008 financial crisis and needed a man with a strategic vision. But like all top financiers in the UK, the regulator must first pass a good conduct test (“Fit and proper person”). At the time, had the question of his relationship with Mr. Epstein been discussed? the Daily Mail had published an article claiming to have seen emails indicating that the pedophile had campaigned for his friend to become the boss of Barclays.
After Mr Epstein’s suicide in prison in the summer of 2019, the case was revived. A few months later, the American financial regulator transfers to the FCA e-mails exchanged between Mr. Staley and Mr. Epstein. The very friendly relations between the two men are obvious.
In February 2020, the FCA formally opens an investigation. At the time, Edward Bramson, an activist investor in Barclays capital, tried to force Mr. Staley to resign, denouncing this “Destabilizing circus”. But the bank’s board of directors stands firm and refuses the resignation of its director. Mr. Staley made a short statement to the press, pleading ignorance of Mr. Epstein’s wrongdoing: “Obviously, I thought I knew him well, and I didn’t. Of course, with hindsight, with what we know now, I deeply regret having been in contact with Jeffrey. “
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