Upper Tribunal Tax and Chancery Chamber

UT (Tax & Chancery) UT-2022-0000150 - [2024] UKUT 00254 (TCC)

Fecha: 10-Jul-2024

The briefing on 30 March 2012

The briefing on 30 March 2012

227.

On 30 March 2012, Mr Kalaris was briefed by Mr Tinney, who told him that GenVen’s findings were “ugly”. Ms Yazdani asked Mr Kalaris “what sort of detail did he [Mr Tinney] give you”, to which Mr Kalaris replied:

“It would have been that. I wouldn’t have asked for a whole lot more necessarily because I knew I was going to meet the guys.”

228.

The conversation continued:

“Ms Yazdani: Did he explain why it was going to be a difficult conversation?
Mr Kalaris: I don’t recall him specifically saying why.
Ms Yazdani: He said it was going to be ugly but you didn’t ask. Is that your recollection, you didn’t ask him why it would be ugly?
Mr Kalaris: I believe although I can’t recall the specific conversation that I would have been given and had a heads up that it was going to ugly, difficult…I definitely don’t recall going into any detail and I was not given any specific detail until I actually heard the explanation by Tom [Biesinger] or Ross [Wall].
…
Mr Trivedi: In the context of an SEC that’s interested in this workstream and Andrew saying “this is going to be ugly”…I find it interesting to know that you didn’t just ask him why.
Mr Kalaris: …I’ll just repeat what I said…
Mr Sparrow (of Ashurst): …Did Andrew, when he gave you the heads up, do you remember him giving you any indication that he’d had a report or that he knew the detail of what Genesis Ventures had concluded?
Mr Kalaris: No.”

229.

Under cross-examination Mr Kalaris maintained that his responses during the 2014 Interview had been correct: he said Mr Tinney had given him “some small sense” that the findings were ugly, and as a result he had “a very clear sense of the direction they were going”.

230.

The Authority’s position, with which we agree, was that it was not credible that Mr Kalaris did not ask for more information when told the findings were “ugly” and that he instead waited until the meeting with GenVen on 5 April 2012. We placed weight on the following:

(1)

The cultural audit was initiated after the SEC issued Barclays with a deficiency letter, which was an extremely serious matter.

(2)

Mr Kalaris asked Mr Tinney to oversee Barclays’ overall response to the SEC letter, but Mr Tinney reported to Mr Kalaris; and

(3)

it was Mr Kalaris who told Ms Chaly that he had commissioned the audit and that the Fed would be kept updated. His own words during the 2014 Interview were that:

“I knew we had made a promise -- I had made a promise to the Fed in terms of us addressing these issues and I wanted to be in a position where I could
deliver against those.”

231.

The next point was whether, as Mr Kalaris said was the case, Mr Tinney did not tell him during the briefing that GenVen had produced a report, and instead concealed its existence. That evidence, too, lacks credibility. Mr Tinney knew Mr Kalaris was going to meet Mr Biesinger and Mr Wall, the authors of the Report, a few days later and there is no evidence that either of those individuals was planning to hide the existence of the GenVen Report from Mr Kalaris. Thus, even if Mr Tinney had wanted to hide the existence of the Report, he would have known Mr Kalaris would have found out about it a few days later.