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Jes Staley’s legal team has said the ex-Barclays boss had been subjected to “public humiliation” after he was asked in court about sexual intercourse with one of Jeffrey Epstein’s employees at an apartment in New York.
Staley, 68, told a London tribunal this week that he had consensual sex at an apartment owned by the late sex offender’s brother, after lawyers acting for the Financial Conduct Authority asked him about it.
Robert Smith KC, representing Staley, said on Thursday that the banker’s legal team was “hugely concerned” that Staley “should have been treated in this way” by the FCA.
The American banker brought the case in an attempt to overturn a 2023 ban and fine imposed on him by the FCA for allegedly allowing Barclays to mislead the regulator about his relationship with Epstein.
The FCA has stressed throughout the proceedings that it is “not seeking to embarrass” Staley and that it has not accused Staley of being involved in or having knowledge of Epstein’s criminality.
The watchdog alleges that Staley downplayed his ties to Epstein, and was not sufficiently candid with regulators.
Smith’s intervention came a day after the court was told about the incident in the New York apartment, which was referenced in a deposition related to separate US proceedings.
The FCA’s counsel, Leigh-Ann Mulcahy KC, asked Staley on Wednesday, “you accept, do you, that you had sexual intercourse with a woman at . . . Epstein’s brother’s apartment on East 66th Street?”, to which he responded “yes”.
The court heard that Staley said in the deposition that he did not know it was Epstein’s brother’s apartment at the time but does now.
Staley told the court on Wednesday that Epstein had not known about the encounter though it was with a member of his staff.
“How did it come about that you had sexual intercourse with a woman who worked for him at an apartment owned by his brother without him coming to know about it?” asked Mulcahy.
Staley responded that he and the woman had become acquainted while he waited for Epstein on certain occasions and “much to my embarrassment today, we had one encounter”.
Smith said on Thursday that “the public humiliation of Mr Staley over this matter has hit the press”, adding that the FCA “must have realised”.
“The damage was done when that question was asked,” Smith said.
But Mulcahy told the tribunal she had dealt with the question as “fairly and sensitively as I could”.
She said there had been “no agreement” that the matter would have been “dealt with in private”. “We refute the suggestion this was done without notice,” she said.
Mulcahy told Staley that she was not seeking to invade his privacy but to establish the connections between him and Epstein, given that he disputes the two had a close personal relationship.
