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

Mr Staley’s position is that his relationship with Mr Epstein is correctly described as being “professionally fairly close”, it being a professional relationship predicated upon business. In his witness statement, he said that they were not personal friends, nor were they personally close. He also said in his witness statement that there has never been an instance in which any social contact with Mr Epstein was not in some way related to business.

Mr Staley’s evidence was that there were only two or three people in his life who he would describe as personal friends, and Mr Epstein was not one of them. That evidence is supported by Ms Wiggins and it may therefore be the case that Mr Staley made a distinction between people he was close to in a purely non-business setting and those who he became close to in a business context, Mr Epstein falling into the latter category. He maintained that he would commonly refer to those in the latter category as “friends” and this was consistent with the way he often referred to his business associates. There is evidence from Ms Wiggins and Mr Higgins to support this evidence.

In particular, Mr Higgins gave evidence to the effect that Mr Staley would typically use effusive or warm language in business correspondence. In his interview, Mr Higgins said that he was not surprised at the effusive nature of some of Mr Staley’s emails to Mr Epstein. He said:

“He writes, what to an Englishman, are extraordinarily affectionate emails to lots of people. I’ve had things like this and I got one over Christmas. You could, I’m sure go through his emails, you would find this sort of intimate and affectionate style, as I say bit odd to an Englishman or woman but that’s the way he writes.”

Mr Higgins was asked about the email where Mr Staley, in referring to his friendship with Mr Epstein said that “I have few so profound”, referred to at [125] above. He replied that this phrase would not raise any questions as to the nature of the relationship between Mr Epstein and Mr Staley and his understanding of it at the time. He went on to say:

“I think you just asked me the same question, and I think the answer’s the same, that Jes writes these sorts of incredibly affectionate emails, and as I think I had mentioned in our previous discussions, Jes had made no secret of the fact that he was, you know, felt indebted if that’s the right word, perhaps it isn’t, to Epstein for a number of things to do with his career and, you know, his daughter getting into university. So, I, you know, there’s nothing in these words which would be inconsistent, or trigger any feeling of inconsistency in, in my mind, bearing in mind what I know about that and the way Jes writes.”

Ms Wiggins agreed in her evidence that Mr Staley “could be quite friendly in his communication style” and effusive “from time to time” and part of that was because he was a very open and friendly person.

There were a number of emails in evidence which do contain examples of Mr Staley’s use of warm language. In relation to the emails that we saw, such examples are usually at the end of a business email where Mr Staley signs off with statements such as “thanks my friend” ; “You are a soul mate”, ; “you are a true friend. From the very bigwnning [sic]”; “Well done my friend” “If you ever find your [sic] in London, please let me buy you a drink. You are a great friend” “Thanks my dear friend. You above all have been at my side.”

However, we have seen nothing in the emails that Mr Staley produced which matches the degree of warmth and closeness shown between Mr Epstein and Mr Staley in emails exchanged between those two men, for instance the emails quoted at [125], [164], [176] and [179] above. These emails are of a highly different character to those described at [194] above.

Mr Smith observed that the vast majority of email correspondence between Mr Staley and Mr Epstein is business related. The correspondence embraces commentary on world events, such as the financial crisis in 2008, subsequent attempts to regulate the banking industry, political events, gossip relating to the financial industry and advice relating to Mr Staley’s own career.

Within this, Mr Smith submitted, there is the occasional expressions of mutual appreciation. However he submits, these are very much a part of, and should not be seen separately to, the primary context for the correspondence and the fact that this was a valuable relationship to Mr Staley.

We accept, as Mr Smith submitted, that Mr Epstein traded in influence and relied on his network for his legitimacy. He used his vast and varied network of relationships in order to further his own aims and intentions and may well have manipulated this network, controlling what information he might divulge to others in the network. That manipulation may work to the benefit of others, but always primarily be for his own ends.

Mr Smith submits that it is difficult to place the correspondence between Mr Epstein and Mr Staley in its proper context in the absence of any ability to see the email correspondence between Mr Epstein and the wide range of other influential persons who formed part of Mr Epstein’s network. Mr Smith submits that the nature of the relationship between Mr Epstein and these other influential figures is material to the issues to be determined. That is because, Mr Smith submits, if other individuals have been engaged with Mr Epstein in similar ways it would support the conclusion that Mr Staley was no exception, thereby casting doubt on the proposition that the relationship was a “close” relationship. This description might therefore be said to apply to a wide range of people who might protest if it was said that they had a close relationship with Mr Epstein and might wish to qualify the relationship as a professional one, on the basis that the relationship was in fact only professionally close. Mr Smith submits that the Tribunal has no “benchmark” or comparators by which to judge whether the relationship between Mr Staley and Mr Epstein was exceptional or unexceptional in the context of that financial environment. The point is that Mr Staley was not unique as regards the nature of his relationship with Mr Staley and there is no evidence to show that his involvement with Mr Epstein was anything other than one grounded in business.

The essence of Mr Smith’s submissions is that it was not inaccurate to state in the Letter that the relationship between Mr Epstein and Mr Staley was not close, because it was merely a professional relationship and because Mr Epstein was not a close personal friend, a status which Mr Staley said in his case applied to no more than two or three persons where the relationship was grounded outside a business context.

As the Authority submitted, that distinction between a relationship which is professionally close because it is grounded in business and a relationship which can be described as close because it is a purely personal relationship is fallacious. Both situations can, and should, be accurately described as giving rise to a close relationship.

Based on the evidence that we have seen, including Mr Staley’s own evidence given during the course of his cross-examination, which is referred to below, our evaluation of the relationship is that it is accurately to be described as a relationship which originated in the objective of both men to further their own business and career interests but in the course of which they became both professionally and personally close.

As the Authority submitted, the Letter did not say that Mr Staley did not have a close personal relationship with Mr Epstein or that they were not friends. The statement was that they did not have a close relationship. Mr Staley admitted that he did have a close relationship with Mr Staley, although it was couched in professional terms.

It is quite possible, and indeed in the Tribunal’s experience, quite common, for a relationship which originates in a professional setting to develop into a relationship where the two people concerned become personally close, even though most of the interaction concerned takes place in a professional context. The fact that Mr Staley’s motive in developing his relationship with Mr Epstein was to exploit Mr Epstein’s network does not detract from that position. Obviously, it is easier to exploit that network if the two men become personally close and grow to trust and confide in each other.

In our view, the fact that Mr Staley chose to confide in Mr Epstein on highly sensitive matters which related to his personal advancement, in the course of which he divulged non-public and arguably highly confidential information, is on any view the most obvious manifestation of a close relationship. The essence of a close relationship is to be found in one where the other person is trusted to deal with sensitive information with absolute discretion. As Mr Staley admitted in his cross-examination, the information that he did share with Mr Epstein would not be divulged by him to someone whom he did not trust absolutely to deal with the information with discretion. In this regard, see in particular the examples described at [97] to [109] and [135] to [139] above. This trust and confidence continued throughout the period Mr Staley and Mr Epstein remained in contact, right up to the position where Mr Staley was being considered for the position of CEO at Barclays in 2015, as described at [182] to [187] above.

There are numerous examples referred to above which are key pointers to the relationship between Mr Staley and Mr Epstein being correctly characterised as a close relationship. In particular:

There is also no doubt that the relationship remained close after Mr Staley left JPM at the end of 2012, even though contact between the two men was less frequent. This is most starkly illustrated by the email that Mr Staley sent Mr Epstein in January 2015, as set out at [176] above.

Mr Staley himself has changed his position on the nature of the relationship with Mr Epstein a number of times since he was first interviewed by the Authority. He has been inconsistent in his statements as to whether there was a personal friendship aspect to the relationship which went beyond the purely professional relationship.

The Letter states baldly that Mr Epstein and Mr Staley did not have a close relationship. However, in July 2019 when press enquiries started to be made about the relationship between the two men Mr Staley told the New York Times that in the course of approximately 7 to 8 years Mr Staley and Mr Epstein were professionally close, saying “it was a relationship predicated on business but they were on good personal terms”.

In his interviews with the Authority, the general line that Mr Staley took was that he had a “fairly” or “pretty” close business or professional relationship with Mr Epstein, implying at one point that it was one that only existed while he worked at JPM. He said at one point during interview that “the relationship with Jeffrey, on a personal level, was very distant”.

This was also the line that Mr Staley took in his witness statement. In particular, he said that he did not have a close personal friendship with Mr Epstein and that he was not personally close to him. However, in his Deposition in the US Proceedings, Mr Staley appeared to accept that there was a degree of friendship involved in the relationship.

Pressed on the meaning of the various emails in which he had described Mr Epstein as “one of our deepest friends” or a “cherished friend” Mr Staley said at various points during his deposition:

Likewise, during his cross-examination, Mr Staley accepted that he “misspoke” when he said that he did not have a close relationship with Mr Epstein. Although he said he did not consider Mr Epstein to be “within my close personal friends” he said that “I’ve always maintained I had a close relationship with Mr Epstein”. He described Mr Epstein at various points as “a close professional friend”, a “profound professional friend”, a “very close professional friend” and that they had “a close professional relationship and I would describe that at times as a friend.”

As we have said, we regard the distinction between a close relationship which arises out of personal friendship and one that arises out of a professional relationship as being fallacious. Mr Staley may have himself made a distinction between a professional friend and a personal friend but it is clear from his various statements in cross-examination that he accepted that there was a degree of friendship between the two of them and this became a close one, even though it originated, and in his mind remained grounded in, a professional relationship. It is also clear that he accepted that the statement in the Letter that there was not a close relationship between them was inaccurate. As we have said, we shall deal later with the question as to whether he knew or believed the statement to be inaccurate in the context in which it appeared in the Letter.

We reject Mr Smith’s submission that it is not possible to come to an accurate conclusion as to whether the relationship between Mr Staley and Mr Epstein was close, without considering whether if other individuals had been engaged with Mr Epstein in similar ways it would support the conclusion that Mr Staley was no exception thereby casting doubt on the proposition that the relationship was a close one.

If we had evidence as to the nature of these other relationships, which we do not, then it may of course be possible to say whether or not those relationships were close ones, either professionally or personally or both. In our view, the evidence that Mr Staley had a close relationship with Mr Epstein is overwhelming and there was no evidence before us to suggest that many others had a relationship which was similar in nature to that we have found existed between Mr Staley and Mr Epstein. In those circumstances it is not relevant what type of relationship others had with Mr Epstein.

We therefore conclude that Statement 1, that is that Mr Staley did not have a close relationship with Mr Epstein, was inaccurate.