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JPMorgan Chase allegedly argued that UK financial regulators had evidence that former Barclays CEO Jes Staley was involved in a crime related to the conviction of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a London court reported.
The revelation underscores how Staley’s downfall at the helm of one of the biggest banks in the UK was caused by the actions of his former employer, the largest Wall Street lender.
Staley had a 30-year high-end career with JPMorgan, but he later fell badly with the US Bank led by Jamie Dimon.
JPMorgan offered to hand over a cache of more than 1,200 emails between Staley and Epstein in 2019, allegedly undermined the guarantees Barclays had written to British regulators in a letter that year. The letter stated that the relationship between the two men was “not close.”
Mark Steward, the former FCA executive director, told the court on Friday that JP Morgan allegedly claimed that the documents it provided “indicating Staley’s involvement in criminal activity related to Epstein’s trafficking.”
According to a statement from his witness, the steward ultimately disagreed with JPMorgan’s assessment.
He told the court that the FCA “are aware that in these cases Staley does not assert that he is involved or aware of Epstein’s criminal activity and does not ask the court to assume that he is based on these documents.
His evidence came on the fifth day of the appeal that Staley was trying to “recklessly” overturning the ban by the FCA and allowed Barclays to mislead regulators about the nature of his relationship with one of the worst sexual predators in recent memory.
Andrew Bailey, then FCA boss and now governor of the Bank of England, also gave evidence on Friday.
He wrote in a similar witness statement that FCA officials informed him in 2019 that Jpmorgan “found documents suggesting some potential fraud in the relationship between Mr Staley and Mr Epstein.”
Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey was head of the FCA at the time of Staley Probe ©Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
The central bank governor said the US bank had made an “unusual request” to force the FCA to hand over documents relating to its relationship with Epstein.
The contents of the document were “a concern as Mr. Staley suggested that he may have misunderstood the Barclays and thus misunderstood the authority,” Bailey wrote in a witness’s statement.
Epstein was found dead in prison in 2019 and awaited trial on charges of a minor woman trafficking. Epstein previously pleaded guilty in 2008 to procuring minors for prostitution.
“There was such a separation. Between the important statement in the letter about the relationship and the evidence received from JpMorgan. Bailey said that when asked by FCA barrister Leigh-Ann Mulcahy KC about his response to the evidence provided by the US Bank, the investigation would have to reach the bottom of this.
The document provided by JPMorgan also included a spreadsheet showing Epstein’s two payments to women with “edited identity,” Steward previously told the court.
JPMorgan told the FCA that payments were made on January 8, 2009 and August 31, 2009, and that the US bank “is “considered a connection” between the payment and the specific email between Staley and Epstein, he added.
One email discussed Staley’s visit to Epstein’s office in Palm Beach in January 2009. In another email exchange in August 2009, Epstein asked Staley if he needed anything while in London, and replied, “Yes.”
Staley’s lawyer said her client declined to comment on what the US Bank said to the FCA. JPMorgan also declined to comment.
Jpmorgan sued Staley and allegedly misunderstood the bank by internally guaranteeing the late sex offender, and the two reached a secret settlement in 2023.
After Staley joined the Barclays in 2015, he poached so many former senior executives from JP Morgan, creating bad blood between the two agencies. Dimon called then-Barclays chair John McFarlane and complained about the asylum, the Financial Times previously reported.
Exiles from JPMorgan to Barclays included CS Venkatakrishnan, who was hired as the Chief Risk Officer of the UK Bank after leaving Staley in 2021 and took over as CEO.
