Jes Staley has stepped down as chief executive of Barclays Plc., the British multinational universal bank, headquartered in London, Report informs referring to The Wall Street Journal.
The decision was made under pressure from regulators about how Staley characterized his relationship with the convicted sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Barclays said Staley stepped down “in view of the conclusions” made by UK regulators in its long-running investigation into what Staley told the bank about his association with Epstein and what it told regulators about the relationship.
The bank said the investigation didn’t find evidence that “Mr. Staley saw, or was aware of, any of Mr. Epstein’s alleged crimes” and said Mr. Staley was planning to contest the conclusions made by regulators.
C.S. Venkatakrishnan, head of global markets, will take over as chief executive immediately, the bank said.
Spokespeople for the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority confirmed the Barclays statement but declined to provide further details about the investigation.
Staley has said his relationship with Epstein was professional and began in 2000 when he was head of the private bank at JPMorgan Chase & Co., and the financier was a client. He told journalists in February 2020 that his interactions with Epstein began to “taper off” after he left JPMorgan in 2013 and that the last time he had contact with him was in the “middle to fall” of 2015. He became Barclays CEO in December 2015.
The Wall Street Journal reported in March 2020 that Staley, who had a large custom-designed sailboat, visited Epstein’s private Caribbean island twice with his wife.
Epstein pleaded guilty in Florida state court to soliciting prostitution from an underage girl in 2008. He was found dead in August 2019 at a New York detention center where he was awaiting trial on federal sex-trafficking charges, in what the New York medical examiner ruled a suicide.
In 2020, prosecutors in the US Virgin Islands alleged Epstein abused hundreds of young women and girls until 2018. The prosecutors said that for nearly two decades, Epstein brought girls as young as 11 to his secluded property on Little St. James island.