Staley's undoing How friendship with Epstein brought down CEO of Barclays

In 1999, the future Barclays chief executive Jes Staley was gearing up for his biggest job yet.

- Kalyeena Makortoff

As head of JP Morgan's private bank, he would be in charge of a sprawling team that managed money and investments for some of the world's richest people.

Among them was the mysterious but well-connected billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, with whom he would quickly develop a "fairly close professional relationship".

Staley was soon holidaying on Epstein's private island, flying on his private plane, and gaining access to an impressive portfolio of ministers, entrepreneurs and royalty. The relationship ended up bolstering Staley's profile on Wall Street and even connecting his daughter to senior figures at Ivy League universities. But it would also help to end his career.

In July 2019 Epstein was arrested on child sex trafficking charges, accused of sexually exploiting and abusing dozens of girls at homes in Manhattan and Palm Beach, Florida. Some victims were as young as 14, US prosecutors alleged. Epstein, who was in jail as he awaited trial, was found dead in his prison cell weeks later.

The revelations led to a media storm, bringing renewed attention to Epstein's former friends and business associates, including Staley. Barclays told the Financial Conduct Authority in October 2019 that the pair "did not have a close relationship" and had last been in contact "well before" Staley took over as CEO four years earlier.

But a subsequent FCA investigation, involving a cache of 1,200 emails from JP Morgan, convinced the regulator that it had been misled. The regulator alleged that the pair were indeed close friends and had stayed in touch via Staley's daughter for years after he joined Barclays.

It was not Staley's first run-in with the FCA, having been fined £642,000 for trying to unmask a whistleblower in 2018. But it was the final straw: he was banned from holding senior management roles in the City in 2023, leading to him losing about £18m in pay.