UT (Tax & Chancery) UT-2023-000064 - [2024] UKUT 00394 (TCC)

This decision relates to four applications for procedural directions involving a reference made by the Applicant (“Mr Staley”) on 26 June 2023. The reference relates to a Decision Notice dated 30 May 2023 (the “Decision Notice”) given by the Financial Conduct Authority (the “Authority”) to Mr Staley pursuant to which the Authority decided that Mr Staley was in breach of three provisions of the Authority’s Handbook, namely ICR1 (the requirement to act with integrity), ICR 3 (the requirement to be open and cooperative with regulators and SMCR 4 (the requirement to disclose appropriately any information which the Authority would reasonably expect notice). The Authority decided to impose upon Mr Staley a penalty of £1,812,800 and to make an order prohibiting him from performing any senior management or significant influence function in relation to any regulated activity carried on by an authorised person, exempt person or exempt professional firm pursuant to s 56 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (“FSMA”).

In brief, the Authority considered that Mr Staley had recklessly and with a lack of integrity approved a letter being sent to the Authority on 8 October 2019 (the “Letter”) that contained misleading statements, (i) as to the nature of his relationship with Mr Jeffrey Epstein (“Mr Epstein”) and (ii) as to the time that they were last in contact. The Letter said that the relationship was not close and that the last contact was well before the Applicant joined Barclays Bank plc as its Chief Executive Officer in December 2015. The Authority contends that both these statements were untrue.

On 26 June 2023 Mr Staley referred the Authority’s decision to the Tribunal. He denies that the Letter contained misleading statements.

The four applications before the Tribunal are as follows:

As regards the Potential Witnesses Application, Mr Staley had originally also asked the Tribunal to consider making a direction that the Authority should serve evidence from three individuals employed by JP Morgan Chase & Co (“JPM”), Mr Staley’s former employer, during the period that is relevant for the purposes of this reference. The Tribunal gave permission for those individuals to make submissions as to why they should not be called as witnesses. In the event, the application in relation to those potential witnesses was withdrawn shortly before the hearing. Mr Farhaz Khan KC, on behalf of JPM, made some limited submissions at the hearing as regards material held by JPM which may be of relevance to the proceedings on this reference but there is no need for me to say anything further about that issue at this stage.