Former Barclays boss loses appeal against City ban over Epstein links

The former Barclays chief executive Jes Staley has lost a legal challenge against the UK financial regulator, leaving him banned from the City for life for misleading the watchdog over his relationship with the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

- Kalyeena Makortoff

The ruling, handed down by the upper tribunal judge Tim Herrington, said: "We agree with the [Financial Conduct] Authority (FCA) that Mr Staley's breaches of the authority's rules represented a serious failure of judgment by Mr Staley.

"Bearing in mind the importance of Barclays as a financial institution, this was conduct that could have resulted in confidence in the financial system being adversely affected."

The case centred on a letter that Barclays sent to the FCA in 2019 that stated Staley "did not have a close relationship" with Epstein and his last contact with the financier was "well before" he joined Barclays four years earlier in 2015.

However, a subsequent investigation by the FCA - triggered by a cache of 1,200 emails from Staley's former employer JP Morgan - concluded that the pair were "indeed close" and had a relationship that "went beyond one that was professional in nature".