Ex-boss of Barclays in focus: Supervisor checks trips on Epstein Island

Ex-boss of Barclays in focus
Supervision checks trips to Epstein Island

Barclays boss Jes Staley is stepping down from office because of his contacts with sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. However, the investigations against the banker are not over. Finance overseers are now particularly interested in two trips from Staley to Epstein’s private island.

UK financial overseers are investigating visits by resigned Barclays boss Jes Staley to the private Caribbean island of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. In a statement, a Barclays spokesman said Staley visited Little St. James Island twice, both times with his wife. Neither the bank nor Staley had previously made these visits public.

Investigators are comparing the information Staley gave to Barclays – and which the bank subsequently passed on to UK financial regulators – with a series of emails and other documents provided by Staley’s former employer, JPMorgan Chase & Co, such as several people familiar with the investigation report.

Staley had previously said his relationship with Epstein had always been professional and began in 2000 when he was a client of JPMorgan and Epstein’s private bank manager. On February 13, Staley told journalists that his contacts with Epstein “waned” after he left JPMorgan in 2013 and that he last had contact with him “in mid-fall 2015”. Staley became CEO of Barclays in December 2015.

The UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Prudential Regulation Authority are investigating “Staley’s account of his relationship with Mr. Epstein to the company and the subsequent description of that relationship in the company’s response to the FCA,” Barclays said in a statement dated 13th February. At the time, the Barclays board of directors said that Staley had been “sufficiently transparent” about the nature and extent of his relationship with Mr. Epstein. The FCA’s task is to check whether executives are fit to run a company.

The US businessman Epstein pleaded guilty to prostitution in Florida in 2008, avoiding federal proceedings. Together with his ex-partner Ghislaine Maxwell, he is said to have sexually abused girls and young women and fed them to other men for years. In August 2020, Epstein was found dead in a Manhattan prison. His demise was classified as a suicide.

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