The ex-Barclays CEO is having a totally embarrassing week, and London can’t stop watching

Yes, Staley replied.

The woman was a member of Epstein’s staff, he said. “Oftentimes I would go to Epstein’s apartment and he would be late and this individual and I got to know each other. And we had, much to my embarrassment today, we had one encounter," said Staley, who also said that it was consensual and that he doesn’t think Epstein knew about it.

The exchange left many in the City of London asking why Staley, 68, chose to put himself through this ordeal. Instead of retiring to his yacht, Staley decided to try to clear his name by appealing a ban and a fine by U.K. regulators. Britain’s freewheeling press feasted on details aired in court this week of the American executive’s yearslong dealings with Epstein, the late convicted sex offender.

“I put my marriage at risk in the last two days to be honest and straightforward with you," Staley said in court. “I have never shied away from telling the truth about all this."

His lawyer, Robert Smith, said being asked about the affair in open court without warning humiliated his client.

Staley was enjoying a gilded career when, in the summer of 2019, Epstein was charged with sex trafficking, unleashing scrutiny of his deep bench of Wall Street associates. When British regulators asked Barclays about its CEO’s reported ties to Epstein, the bank’s chairman sent a letter saying Staley had told him they weren’t close.

The Financial Conduct Authority, the U.K.’s finance watchdog better known as the FCA, later ruled Staley had acted without integrity by approving misleading statements, and banned him from holding powerful positions in U.K. finance. The regulator doesn’t argue he had anything to do with Epstein’s misconduct. Even so, the investigation cost him his job, his good name and more than $20 million in compensation.

Beyond vindication, victory could have financial upside. Staley wouldn’t have to pay a 1.8 million pound ($2.3 million) fine and might have a case that Barclays should give him the pay it withheld, according to lawyers not involved in the case.

A Barclays spokesman declined to comment.

Staley grew up in Philadelphia and joined Morgan Guaranty Trust’s Latin American division after studying economics at Bowdoin College in Maine. Married with two daughters, Staley spent 34 years at JPMorgan Chase, and got to know Epstein when he ran its private bank and asset-management arm in the 2000s. On Wall Street, he was once seen as a possible successor to JPMorgan CEO Jamie Dimon. But when he left the finance giant in 2013 for a hedge fund—after narrowly missing out on the top job at Barclays—his career at the pinnacle of finance seemed to be over.

Barclays came knocking again two years later. “The bank was in a bad place. It was failing," Staley told the court. He joined as CEO in 2015 and sold extraneous businesses and fought an activist investor who wanted Barclays to scale back its ambitions on Wall Street. A different probe by the regulator, into Staley’s handling of a whistleblower, landed him with a fine in 2018.

The case involves a quintessentially British collision of tabloid hacks, royals, arcane disputes over 19th-century legal precedents and a clubby elite that initially rallied to Staley’s defense before turning on him.

The crux of Staley’s argument in court: The letter to the FCA was meant to convey he wasn’t in a position to know of Epstein’s alleged crimes and was never supposed to be a definitive account of their relationship.

Staley described the letter as a collective endeavor—drafted by the bank’s top lawyer at the time and signed by Chairman Nigel Higgins, both of whom he’d briefed on some aspects of his ties to Epstein. He said he relied on others to make a record of their relationship because he is dyslexic. “Writing is very hard for me and so it wouldn’t be my natural course to sit back and put pen to paper," he said.

Sporting a dark suit, a salmon-pink tie and black shoes with a gold buckle, Staley took the oath Monday after watching a troupe of boldfaced names—including Higgins and Bank of England Gov. Andrew Bailey, who previously ran the FCA—testify about their roles in the letter and subsequent investigation. A gaggle of photographers snapped the former CEO entering the courthouse, flanked by his legal team, and U.K. news outlets have run daily recaps of the proceedings. During a break, he flicked through a book about a lawyer who prosecuted Nazis after World War II.

For more than three days, he fielded questions from the FCA’s lawyer, many of them about emails he exchanged with Epstein. The FCA painted the men as deep friends whose intimacy went beyond the bounds of a normal commercial relationship. Epstein died in jail in August 2019 before a trial, in what medical examiners ruled was a suicide.

They had a close professional relationship, Staley kept responding—predicated on his own work at JPMorgan, where Epstein was a client and his Rolodex a prize asset.

You called him “uncle Jeffrey" in an email to your daughter, said Leigh-Ann Mulcahy, the FCA’s lawyer. “That is not a typical way you refer to a business associate, is it?"

“It was a professional relationship," Staley replied.

Epstein sent you a photo of a woman he said he “had to put up with," Mulcahy said. “It is an image that would be sent between two people who were personally close, isn’t it?"

“Or professionally close, you know, if you’ve ever worked on a trading floor on Wall Street," said Staley. His lawyer had said the picture, which hasn’t been published in court filings, was of “a lady in an evening gown."

Around midday Wednesday, Staley’s deadpan demeanor cracked when Mulcahy asked about Epstein’s efforts to introduce the banker’s daughter to scientists at Columbia and Harvard universities when she was pursuing a Ph.D. in physics.

“This is an invasion of my family that you’re persecuting here and I resent it," he said, shaking his head and asking the judge for a break. “I find it amazing you’re bringing all this in."

Epstein, Staley told the court, opened doors to powerful people in business and government, gave valuable information and brokered the most important deal of his career, JPMorgan’s purchase of a majority stake in hedge fund Highbridge Capital for more than $1 billion in 2004. Visits to Epstein’s properties—including one in which Staley’s family flew out on the financier’s private plane to his Caribbean island in the mid-2000s—were brief and sometimes involved other rich people, Staley’s lawyer said. Staley said he never hosted Epstein at his home.

Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida in 2008 to soliciting and procuring a minor for prostitution.

“Free and home," Epstein emailed four people, including Staley, on his release from jail the next year. “I toast your courage!!!!!" Staley responded.

“I was loyal to him and obviously spending time in prison is a tough thing," Staley told the court.

Mulcahy read aloud a now-infamous message that Staley sent Epstein in 2010: “That was fun. Say hi to Snow White." Epstein responded asking which character he’d like next. “Beauty and the Beast," Staley sent back.

In interviews with investigators, the court heard, Staley said he had no idea what the emails referred to. Could he now remember, Mulcahy asked.

“No," Staley said, taking off his glasses and pursing his lips. Mulcahy pressed him. “I don’t recall the emails," Staley answered four times.

Just before Staley’s appointment at Barclays, Epstein forwarded an email he’d received from a British tabloid reporter asking to speak about the banker. Staley told Epstein he would play it safe if the journalist contacted him as well, according to court filings. “I’ve known you as a client," Staley emailed.

Staley agreed with Barclays he should cut off contact, the court heard. Over the next 3½ years, the bank’s performance perked up under his watch. The FCA alleges Staley stayed in contact with Epstein using Staley’s adult daughter as a go-between, which Staley denies.

Higgins, the Barclays chair, was walking in the Romanian mountains a few weeks after Epstein’s arrest in the summer of 2019 when the FCA official who supervised the bank asked to speak. The only record the authority has of their seven-minute call is a summary of a conversation the FCA official had with his assistant the next day, saved in her email drafts.

Higgins sent the letter saying Staley had confirmed to board members and the bank’s general counsel that he wasn’t close with Epstein.

In late 2019, JPMorgan handed the FCA a trove of Staley’s emails with Epstein. The regulator started an investigation.

“You have destroyed him," Higgins at the time told Bailey, then head of the FCA, the court heard. Staley resigned in 2021, and the FCA banned him in 2023.

Closing arguments will be heard in April. If he loses, Staley could appeal all the way to the U.K.’s Supreme Court.

For more than three days, Staley fielded questions from the FCA’s lawyer about emails he exchanged with Epstein.