You can call it ‘the Epstein curse’.
A demonstrably close association with late pedophile Jeffrey Epstein is like a bad smell that won’t go away – just ask disgraced Prince Andrew about it.
But the troubled royal was not the only high-profile individual running into trouble because of a friendship with Epstein and failed attempts to deny or minimize it.
Former Barclays CEO and JPMorgan top executive Jes Staley is ensnared in one such situation.
Staley was fined £1.8 million and banned for life from holding senior roles in the financial sector.
Back in 2023, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) found that ‘he misled the regulator’ over the nature of his relationship with Epstein.
He challenged the ban and the fine at the Upper Tribunal in London, but it ruled that ‘there is overwhelming evidence’ that Staley had a ‘close relationship’ with Epstein.
Daily Mail reported:
“In a unanimous decision on Thursday, Upper Tribunal judge Tim Herrington and tribunal members Martin Fraenkel and Cathy Farquharson dismissed Mr. Staley’s challenge, but reduced the fine to £1,107,306.92. They said: ‘We regard the distinction between a close relationship which arises out of personal friendship and one that arises out of a professional relationship as being fallacious’.
They continued: ‘In our view, the evidence that Mr. Staley had a close relationship with Mr. Epstein is overwhelming and there was no evidence before us to suggest that many others had a relationship which was similar in nature to that we have found existed between Mr. Staley and Mr. Epstein.[…] In our view, there is no basis on which Mr. Staley could have drawn the conclusion that inclusion of the ‘no close relationship language’ was accurate’.”
When the FCA contacted Barclays regarding the association of Mr. Staley with Mr. Epstein, Staley misled the bank and the FCA in his reply.
“In a letter written to the FCA, approved by Mr. Staley, Barclays chairman Nigel Higgins said ‘Jes has confirmed to us that he did not have a close relationship with Mr. Epstein’ and that ‘Jes’ last contact with Mr. Epstein was well before he joined Barclays’ in 2015.”
The FCA found that Staley acted ‘recklessly and without integrity’, since he kept contact up to at least February 2017.
“The [FCA] barrister said emails showed Mr. Staley describing Epstein as like ‘family’ and one of his ‘deepest’ and ‘most cherished’ friends, and that between March 2016 and February 2017, Mr. Staley’s daughter, Alexa Staley, was used as an intermediary.”
“But in their 93-page ruling, Judge Herrington, Mr. Fraenkel and Ms. Farquharson said it was ‘not credible that Mr. Staley did not think that the letter would mislead’ the FCA. They continued that they ‘would have expected Mr. Staley to have been particularly careful’ in ensuring the letter was accurate, and that his breaches of FCA rules were ‘a serious failure of judgment’.”
The judges decided they should not interfere with the lifetime ban of Staley, adding that he showed ‘no remorse for his conduct’.
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