Barclays at bay in Staveley case as key witness shifts evidence

THE pressure rose on Barclays over its £1.5 billion court battle with Amanda Staveley today after one of the bank’s star witnesses changed his evidence the night before taking the stand.

David Forbes, formerly of Abu Dhabi government fund the International Petroleum Investment Company, had launched a scathing attack on Staveley over her role in a bailout of Barclays in 2008.

The essence of the case is that Staveley claims she is owed as an investor and a principal in the deal, while Barclays insists she was a mere introducer and, at times, an irritant.

Forbes branded Staveley a publicity seeker “who would confidently make assertions which proved to lack any real foundation or which she would later contradict without realising”.

However, he subsequently changed details on arguably critical facts about where and when he spoke to her.

Last night Staveley’s lawyers moved to have his entire testimony struck from the record. While that is not unusual in high-profile cases, it poses a problem for Barclays’ defence ahead of a key period in the trial.

Next week sees former UK Finance chief Stephen Jones give testimony. Jones, a former Barclays executive, stepped down from UK Finance after it emerged he had allegedly referred to Staveley’s firm PCP Capital Partners as “a bunch of scumbags”.

PCP lawyer Joe Smouha QC told Mr Justice Waksman yesterday: “We will, of course, be submitting that Mr Forbes’ evidence is wholly unreliable and he has made untrue and serious allegations of dishonesty, which should never have been adopted by Barclays.”