Barclays’ £30m bill for Staveley battle
...but court loss banker hit by own £20m costs
BARCLAYS must pick up the £30million legal bills they ran up during a high Court fight with a top banker – despite winning the case, a judge has ruled.
Amanda Staveley, 47, who once dated Prince Andrew, sued the bank saying she was edged out of a deal to invest at the height of the financial crisis.
She has fought for five years claiming the ‘deceit’ cost her £660million, but her case was dismissed last month by mr Justice Waksman.
he found the bank had lied to her about the terms of the deal, but that she would have been unable to come up with the money that she had promised in time. yesterday the judge was asked to rule on who should pick up the bill.
lawyers for miss Staveley’s firm, PCP, had argued it had spent a fortune on ‘issues in which Barclays failed’, adding that an £11million contribution towards PCP’s bill would be a ‘pimple on Barclays’ legal budget’. Barclays said she should pay as the bank won the case. mr Justice Waksman ruled that both parties should pay their own bills.
The decision is against normal practice, where the losing party is asked to pay costs.
miss Staveley’s £20million bill will fall heavily on her litigation funders, Therium, who bankroll cases in return for a cut if their client wins. She said the decision proved the court had recognised she was lied to and that Barclays had profited, despite ultimately ruling against her.
‘The court found that Barclays had orchestrated a fraud against PCP [and] that it was “guilty of serious deceit”,’ she said. ‘i am grateful that the court has again recognised... the “very large financial benefit” which Barclays obtained from its deceit, by ensuring that PCP does not pay Barclays’ legal costs.’
The case concerned Barclays’ frenzied attempt to raise £7.3billion in 2008 to prevent itself falling into public ownership. it began to woo investors from the middle east including Qatar and Abu dhabi, which was investing in concert with miss Staveley.
her opposite number at the bank, edinburgh-raised roger Jenkins, who once dated model elle macpherson and was known as ‘Big dog’ to colleagues, told her she was getting the same deal as Qatar.
The judge ruled this was a lie, and said that the bank was therefore guilty of ‘fraudulent misrepresentation’.
during the case, Barclays sought to paint miss Staveley as a financial rookie who was ‘hustling’ to put herself at the heart of the deal.
But the judge said she was ‘a tough, clever and creative entrepreneur’ and the driving force of her firm PCP Capital.
The court heard that Barclays executives had used a torrent of sexist language. Former executive Stephen Jones quit last June as the UK’s top banking lobbyist after it emerged he had called miss Staveley ‘thick as s*** with big breasts’.
A month later, Barclays dealmaker mr Jenkins – who ran for Scotland at the 1974 Commonwealth games – publicly apologised for calling miss Staveley a ‘dolly bird’ and a ‘tart’.
‘Guilty of serious deceit’