UT (Tax & Chancery) UT-2023-000064 - [2025] UKUT 00203 (TCC)

We agree with Mr Smith that the Bowdoin College Talking Points cannot be regarded as a comprehensive account of the relationship between Mr Epstein and Mr Staley. There is no such document but it is clear that neither Mr Hoyt nor Mr Higgins had any account from Mr Staley of the depth of the relationship which adds to what was said in the Bowdoin College Talking Points. As we have mentioned above, Mr Hoyt understood that the Bowdoin College Talking Points reflected Mr Staley’s description of his relationship with Mr Epstein and set out the facts of that relationship. Therefore, in so far as the account was incomplete, responsibility for that rests with Mr Staley. We cannot therefore accept his evidence that the document shows that Barclays had an accurate picture of the relationship.

Mr Higgins’s evidence was that he was read all or part of the Bowdoin College Talking Points, although he did not at the time receive a hard copy. He said that when eventually he did read it none of the contents surprised him and that the final draft of the Bowdoin College Talking Points was consistent with what he had been told by Mr Staley about his relationship with Mr Epstein.

The Bowdoin College Talking Points state that over a period of between 7 and 8 years Mr Epstein and Mr Staley became professionally close. When read together with the earlier statement in the document, referred to at [300] above, that Mr Epstein had no connection with Mr Staley’s professional life after his conviction, the clear impression was given that the relationship was a purely professional one and only existed during the time that Mr Staley was running the JPM Private Bank. The document also did not give any flavour to the frequency of the meetings between the two men after Mr Epstein’s release, or that they remained in contact right up to the end of October 2015. Neither did the document mention that Mr Staley had taken Mr Epstein into his confidence regarding highly sensitive matters involving his professional life right up to that time.

We therefore conclude that Barclays did not by the date of the Letter have a full and accurate picture of the nature of the relationship between Mr Staley and Mr Epstein. What Barclays was told was clearly at variance with our evaluation of the relationship, as summarised at [189] to [217] above.