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Barclays PLC
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Phone: +44 2031340952p:+44 2031340952 LONDON, E14 5HP  United Kingdom Ticker: BARCBARC


Amanda Staveley loses Barclays legal battle


Financier Amanda Staveley has said she feels vindicated and suggested she will fight on after losing the most high-profile lawsuit to come out of the financial crisis.

In a high court ruling, a judge found that Barclays was "guilty of serious deceit" in the way it treated her as she scrambled to secure support from Abu Dhabi investors in an emergency 2008 fundraising drive to prevent a taxpayer bailout of the lender.

However, he refused her claim for more than £600m in damages as he said there was no real chance Ms Staveley would be paid the fees which she claimed that Barclays' deception had cost her.

The judge criticised Barclays for attempts to discredit Ms Staveley as a lightweight "chancer" who engaged in a "hustle" to get involved in the deal. He said in his view she was a "tough, clever and creative entrepreneur".

Ms Staveley said: "In spite of Barclays’ efforts to question my character and credentials, the court has recognised my abilities as a businesswoman."

She is now taking advice on appealing the judge's decision not to award damages.

The fight will next move to a battle over who pays legal expenses, with a costs hearing expected to take place soon and many millions of pounds at stake.

Ms Staveley sued the bank after her contact Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, whom she helped buy Manchester City FC, contributed £3.5bn to a blockbuster deal from Middle Eastern investors in 2008 that saved Barclays from the hands of the government.

She claimed her firm PCP Capital Partners was was treated unfairly because it did not receive the same fees as other Qatari investors, and sought damages of around £660m. Barclays said she was only an adviser rather than an investor.

During the trial it emerged that top Barclays bankers had dismissed Ms Staveley as a "dolly-bird" and called her "the tart" at the time of the fundraising.

Former Barclays banker Stephen Jones resigned as head of bank lobby group UK Finance over remarks he made about her 12 years ago that were revealed in court.

The ruling found that top Barclays banker Roger Jenkins, viewed as the gatekeeper to its relationship with Qatari investors, gave the impression to Ms Staveley that she would get the same deal as Qatar when he "knew perfectly well" that was not the case.

Ms Staveley said the judgment "confirms what I have said from the outset and repeated in my evidence; a senior executive at Barclays repeatedly lied to me when seeking private investment in the bank during the 2008 financial crisis".

She added: "The evidence at trial was clear and unequivocal; PCP was an investor in the transaction and played an integral role in the capital raising, which ultimately prevented the bank from being nationalised. I will be taking advice on appealing the Judge’s decision not to award damages.”

Ms Staveley's case meant the twists and turns of the events that led to the crucial fundraising resurfaced yet again in a London court.

A criminal trial brought by the Serious Fraud Office over the same cash call collapsed early last year after a jury took just five hours to acquit three former Barclays bankers on all counts.

A parallel case against Barclays itself was also thrown out in 2018, while a criminal case against former Barclays' chief executive John Varley was dismissed in 2019 by the Court of Appeal.

Earlier in the trial Ms Staveley, a former girlfriend of Prince Andrew, said she felt she was only invited to a party hosted by Mr Jenkins and attended by George Clooney as part of an attempt by the bank to cut her out and get direct access to Sheikh Mansour.

A Barclays spokesman said: "We welcome the court’s decision to dismiss PCP’s claim in its entirety and award it no damages."


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Thursday, March 28, 2024