Fresh row hits tainted UK Finance
THE former boss of UK Finance embroiled in a sexism row has been dragged deeper into Amanda Staveley’s £1.6bn High Court battle with Barclays.
Staveley, a high profile financier, has accused Stephen Jones of engineering a ‘questionable’ £2bn loan as Barclays fought to avoid a Government bailout in 2008.
Jones stepped down as boss of the lobbying group on Tuesday after making ‘highly derogatory’ comments about Staveley during the financial crisis.
But as managing director of Barclays Capital at the time he also helped arrange a loan with Qatari investors which Staveley has alleged may have been illegal.
Staveley, who burst into tears yesterday after being accused of trying to ‘hustle’ Barclays out of hundreds of millions of pounds, previously told the court that Barclays secretly offered Qatari investors the £2bn loan behind her back, while also concealing it from shareholders.
She has suggested the money, loaned in November 2008, was used to invest in Barclays shares – a banned practice known as financial assistance.
In October 2008 the bank was desperately seeking to avoid a Government bailout by raising £7.3bn from Middle Eastern investors, the court heard.
Staveley and her firm PCP Capital helped secure a bail-out from Abu Dhabi investors.
She said Barclays told her six times that PCP and the Abu Dhabi investors would be offered the same deal as the Qataris, it is claimed. Instead the bank is accused of misleading markets and funnelling an extra £346m in secret fees to the Qataris, a move which ‘smacked of corruption’, according to court documents.
Staveley is claiming between £400m and £1.6bn in damages.
The loan, according to Staveley’s witness statement, was ‘a large, unsecured loan whose purpose seemed to change during the negotiations’.
It caused immense disquiet within Barclays because banks were slashing risky borrowing to protect their balance sheets, it is claimed. But the court heard that pressure was exerted by the former chief executive Bob Diamond to do the deal, with Jones saying in a call: ‘We have to find a way of making this financing available.’
The loan was agreed within weeks of the Qatar investment in Barclays, it is claimed, and Jones admitted ‘we would go to prison’ if the money were ‘explicitly to fund the capital raising efforts’.
In court documents Staveley’s firm PCP claims that making the loan constituted unlawful financial assistance under the Companies Act 1985. Barclays dispute the claim saying the loan contract explicitly prevented Qatar from using the money in this way.
Yesterday Staveley was accused of lying by Barclays’ barrister.
Jeffery Onions QC rejected Staveley’s claim that she was crucial to the Abu Dhabi rescue deal, and portrayed her as an inexperienced, bit-player prepared to use false documents to make herself a fortune. He said: ‘You were effectively engaged in what might be colloquially called a hustle – trying to place yourself at the centre. You had no funds to invest, and nothing to offer.’
Staveley has also accused Barclays’s top brass of ‘sexism and misogyny’, with executives branding her a ‘tart’ and a ‘foxy blonde’.
Jones’s personal comments about Staveley have not been revealed, but he has said they were ‘wholly inappropriate. I regret making these comments and I cannot defend them and will not seek to’. UK Finance declined to comment.