Barclays chair has shifted view on Jes Staley’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, courtroom hears | USAEMALL.com

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Barclays chair Nigel Higgins has said he now has a different view about former chief executive Jes Staley’s relationship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein after previously defending him.

A London court heard on Monday that Higgins had explained “affectionate” emails that Staley sent to Epstein as being “the way he writes” to “lots of people”.

However, in an accompanying witness statement, Higgins acknowledged that the bank would have questioned Staley more thoroughly about the relationship if it knew then what it knew now.

His evidence came as the trial in Staley’s legal case against the Financial Conduct Authority entered its second week. The former chief executive is trying to overturn a ban and fine the FCA imposed in 2023 for “recklessly” allowing Barclays to mislead it in a letter the bank sent the regulator in 2019 over the nature of his relationship with the sexual predator.

In his witness statement, Higgins said: “From my interactions with Mr Staley up to the point of sending the 8 October 2019 letter, and indeed afterwards whilst he remained at Barclays, I had understood that the relationship between him and Mr Epstein was essentially business related.

“The information of which I am now aware paints a different picture in my mind as to the nature of the relationship.”

He added: “Had my colleagues at Barclays and I been aware of all of the information of which I am now aware, I am sure that we would have questioned Mr Staley about that further information in depth.

“At this distance, and without the benefit of discussing this information with Mr Staley and other colleagues, I cannot be certain what we would have concluded.

“However, based on the information of which I am now aware (albeit without having had the chance to test it with Mr Staley) it is likely that we would have taken a different approach” in responding to questions from the FCA.

The case centres on two statements Barclays made in the letter, which Staley approved, that the chief executive “did not have a close relationship” with Epstein, and that his last contact with Epstein was “well before” he joined Barclays in 2015.

The FCA’s lawyers, led by Leigh-Ann Mulcahy KC, argue that the cache of emails between the two show that the statements in Barclays’ letter were inaccurate.

The court heard that officials at the FCA asked Higgins in an interview in 2021 about the emails, including one in which the banker described the relationship as “profound”.

Higgins told the officials that “he writes what to an Englishman are extraordinarily affectionate emails to lots of people”.

“You could I’m sure go through his emails and find this sort of intimate and affectionate style,” he added. “That’s the way he writes.”

Staley’s legal team, led by Robert Smith KC, disputes the FCA’s characterisation of the relationship as “close”.

His lawyers argue that it was flawed for the authority simply to compare the content of the emails between the two with Barclays’ letter to the FCA, whose real purpose was not to provide an all-encompassing account of the pair’s relationship but simply to assure the FCA that neither Staley nor Barclays knew of or were involved in Epstein’s criminal conduct.