The former chief executive of Barclays admitted at the High Court on Wednesday that he had sex with a member of staff working for Jeffrey Epstein at an apartment owned by the convicted paedophile’s brother.
In his third day of cross examination as part of a legal clash with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), Jes Staley said this was “much to my embarrassment”.
When asked by Leigh-Ann Mulcahy KC, the FCA’s barrister, whether the encounter was consensual, Staley answered “yes”.
The court was also shown an email from Jeffrey Epstein to Prince Andrew in 2010, which said: “I know you are seeing Jes Staley this morning, he is like family, and can be trusted. 100 per cent.”
The FCA wants to sue the American financier for £1.8m – and ban him from senior positions in the City – for having “recklessly misled” the financial watchdog as to his relationship with Epstein.
Staley has taken the regulator to court to fight the fine, insisting that his relationship with Epstein was never “personal” but that it was instead “close, professional”.
In a letter to Barclays in 2019 that is now central to the FCA’s case against Staley, he claimed that he cut off contact with Epstein “well before” taking the reins at Barclays.
Staley worked at JPMorgan Chase for 34 years before taking over the UK banking giant in 2015.
The financier told the court on Monday that he had “never attempted to conceal” his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
He added: “If I had known it was to be found that he was a prolific sex offender, I would not have had a relationship with him at all, let alone valued the advice he gave to my daughter”.
On Monday, the Barclays chairman Nigel Higgins told the court that his understanding of Staley’s relationship with Epstein as “essentially business-related” may have been mistaken.
“The information of which I am now aware paints a different picture in my mind as to the nature of the relationship.”