Jes Staley told the City watchdog in 2019 that he had only a small circle of friends and Epstein could not be classed among them. During an interview with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), he said most of the people he associated with were his wife’s friends, not his.
Leigh-Ann Mulcahy KC, representing the FCA, told a hearing on Monday that Mr Staley had said “a personal friendship would be far broader” than his relationship with Epstein.
Mr Staley said in 2019: “He and I never went out for dinner at a restaurant … we never went for a drink … we never went to football games together.
“It was not a personal friendship in the sense he never came to my house.”
Mr Staley, who ran Barclays between 2015 and 2021, is attempting to overturn a lifetime ban from the City over claims he misled the watchdog over the nature of his relationship with Epstein, the paedophile financier.
Mr Staley acted as a private banker to Epstein during his time at JP Morgan, where he worked for more than 30 years before joining Barclays. Epstein was jailed for child sex offences in 2008 and was arrested again in 2019. He died in prison that year while awaiting trial for sex trafficking offences.
The 2019 FCA interview transcript forms a key piece of evidence in Mr Staley’s attempt to overturn his ban and a £1.8m fine imposed by the watchdog in 2023.
In a letter to the FCA in 2019, reviewed by Mr Staley, Barclays claimed that its chief executive did not have a “close relationship” with Epstein and their last contact was “well before” he joined the bank in December 2015.
However, the FCA concluded the letter was misleading and that Mr Staley acted “recklessly and without integrity” by allowing it to be sent. The watchdog’s lawyers told a tribunal on Monday that he and Epstein had a “friendship” and maintained contact through Mr Staley’s daughter up to at least February 2017.
Ms Mulcahy KC told the court: “While the origin of the relationship was professional it evolved into a personal relationship.”
Mr Staley is challenging the FCA’s findings and the ban at the Upper Tribunal in London. A hearing was told that there was “inherent improbability” that he would have tried to mislead the watchdog.
In written submissions, Robert Smith KC, acting for Mr Staley, said that his client “has never attempted to conceal his relationship with Mr Epstein” and insisted the 2019 letter aimed only to “assure the authority that neither Barclays nor Mr Staley had had any knowledge of or involvement in” Epstein’s criminal activities.
He said: “In stating, as the letter did, that Mr Staley’s relationship with Mr Epstein had not been ‘close’, its purpose was to convey the fact that the nature of the relationship was not one which could have resulted in Mr Staley becoming aware of Mr Epstein’s misconduct.”
Jes Staley has previously said he ‘deeply regrets’ his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein (pictured) – New York State Sex Offender Registry via AP
While Mr Staley visited Epstein’s Caribbean island on a sailing holiday in April 2015, Mr Smith said these were not “circumstances in which Mr Staley would have become aware of what was now being alleged against Mr Epstein”.
Mr Smith also said that Mr Staley “does not accept that the email correspondence passing between Mr Epstein and his daughter constituted contact between himself and Mr Epstein”. The pair’s relationship was “professionally close” and “firmly grounded in business”, Mr Staley’s lawyer insisted.
The court submission stated: “Anyone reading the email correspondence in its entirety should reach the clear opinion that the range of his contacts and influence is not only astonishing but is probably without precedent. The value of Mr Epstein to Mr Staley is obvious, given Mr Staley’s own prominent position in banking and the financial sector.”
The FCA opposes Mr Staley’s case, with its barristers calling the fine “appropriate”.
In written submissions, Ms Mulcahy KC, said emails showed Mr Staley describing Epstein as like “family” and one of his “deepest” and “most cherished” friends. Between March 2016 and February 2017, Mr Staley’s daughter, Alexa Staley, was used as an intermediary, the FCA asserts.
In March 2016, Epstein emailed Ms Staley asking: “how’s dad doing?”, and after the US presidential election in November 2016, asked: “Could you ask your dad if he would like to be considered for treasury.”
She replied: “Spoke with him. He said not yet, but thanks. Alexa.”
Ms Mulcahy told the court that the FCA did not “seek to criticise Mr Staley for his choice of friendship” with Epstein and “is not seeking to establish any sort of guilt by association”.
However, she said Mr Staley had “repeatedly mis-stated the extent of the relationship” and “allowed an inaccurate picture to be presented”.
She said: “What he was not entitled to do was make false statements to the authority about his friendship when asked about it.”
Mr Staley, who previously said he “deeply regrets” his relationship with the disgraced financier, appeared at the tribunal on Monday and will give evidence later this month.
High-profile City figures are also set to give evidence, including Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey, who was the chief executive of the FCA between 2016 and 2020.
The hearing before Tim Herrington, Upper Tribunal judge, and Martin Fraenkel and Cathy Farquharson, both Upper Tribunal members, is due to conclude in April.
