City profile

Jes Staley

“Barclays is known for its corporate dramas,” says The Sunday Times. But this one could be particularly scandalous. The bank’s CEO, Jes Staley, is being investigated by UK regulators over his relationship with the sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who was found dead in his prison cell while awaiting trial last August. “It’s well known I had a professional relationship with Epstein,” Staley, 63, told reporters, sounding rattled. The American banker said the relationship was “maintained” during his previous 34-year stint at JPMorgan, but that it had “tapered off quite significantly” when he left – and he’d had no contact with Epstein since joining Barclays in 2015. Earlier that year, Staley and his wife Debora visited Epstein at his Virgin Islands home.

Staley has already “survived” one big regulatory investigation at Barclays, said Nils Pratley in The Guardian. In 2018, he was judged to be “merely incompetent” (rather than lacking personal integrity) while “trying to unmask an internal whistle-blower”. But the new investigation by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Bank of England is different. “It’s about whether Staley lied, or was less than frank, when describing to the Barclays board his relationship with Epstein”. Only “a finding of 100% cleanliness will do”. In other circumstances, Staley might have expected applause – Barclays’ 2019 numbers showed a 25% jump in profits to £4.4bn. But if he is “found to be even an inch out of line” in his account of his dealings with Epstein, he will be dumped immediately.