Barclays’ former boss has been banned from holding senior positions in the UK after he was judged to have misrepresented his relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Jes Staley has also been fined £1.8m, said the Financial Conduct Authority.
The regulator said Staley, who has denied knowing about Epstein’s crimes, had claimed not to be close to Epstein when emails suggested he viewed him as a “cherished” friend.
Staley intends to appeal the FCA’s decision.
Additionally, Barclays said on Thursday that Staley should not receive bonuses and long-term share incentives totalling £17.8m following the FCA’s findings.
Epstein was convicted in 2008 for soliciting sex from a minor and sentenced to 13 months in prison. He killed himself in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex-trafficking charges.
The regulator said Staley had recklessly approved a letter sent by Barclays to the FCA which contained two misleading statements about his relationship with Epstein.
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Therese Chambers, joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, said: “A chief executive needs to exercise sound judgement and set an example to staff at their firm. Mr Staley failed to do this.
“We consider that he misled both the FCA and the Barclays board about the nature of his relationship with Epstein.”
She said he could not be relied on “to act with integrity by disclosing uncomfortable truths about his close personal relationship with Epstein”.
In August 2019, the FCA had asked Barclays what it had done to satisfy itself that there had been no impropriety in the relationship between Staley and Epstein.
Epstein had been a client of JP Morgan Chase, the US investment bank, where Staley worked for three decades including heading up its asset and wealth management division.
Staley described as “fair and accurate” a letter written by Barclays to the FCA based on information supplied by Staley that he did not have a close relationship with Epstein. But emails between the two men showed that Staley had described Epstein as one of his “deepest” and “most cherished” friends.
It was also shown that Staley had been in contact with Epstein in the days leading up to his appointment as chief executive of Barclays in 2015, despite Staley having said he had had no contact with Epstein long before he joined the bank.
The FCA said that although Staley did not draft the letter personally, there was “no excuse for his failure to correct the misleading statements”. In doing so, it added, he “recklessly misled the FCA and acted with a lack of integrity”.
A spokesman for the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority, said it supported the FCA’s decision against Staley.
Last month, Staley reached a settlement with JP Morgan over claims that he failed to fully disclose the extent of his relationship with Epstein while an employee.
In 2018 Staley was fined £642,000 by the FCA over his handling of a whistleblower case. An anonymous letter had made allegations about Barclays, including Staley personally.
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