Staley, Epstein & the Cost of Association

In this episode, David Masters and Neil Robson unpack the high-stakes appeal by Jes Staley against his lifetime ban from the FCA, and the tangled web of his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein at the heart of this case. 

The conversation turns to the newly uncovered extent of their relationship, the regulator’s rationale for such a decisive penalty, and whether the appeal has unintentionally magnified public scepticism. Beyond that, it revisits a lesser-known whistle blower episode that marked a troubling chapter in his leadership at Barclays, while expanding the focus to Epstein - his crimes, his influential network, and the presence of high-profile figures such as Donald Trump. 

With comparisons drawn to financial criminal Bernie Madoff, the episode highlights how powerful individuals can evade scrutiny for years, shielded by status and influence, until their reputations collapse. With credibility hanging by a thread, the question remains: is redemption still possible for Staley, and what does his case reveal about the fragility of reputation at the highest levels of financial services?

Recorded and produced at the Lansons Studios

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This podcast contains discussions around sensitive topics, including sexual assault, abuse, and other potentially distressing subjects. Listener discretion is advised. If you or someone you know is affected by any of the issues raised, please consider seeking support from a trusted organisation or professional.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 0:47 Overview of Jes Staley's Case
• 1:40 Staley and Epstein's Relationship
• 3:12 Staley's Appeal
• 7:58 Media Reaction
• 10:02 Business Practices and Criminal Activities
• 17:21 Staley’s FCA Troubles and the Fallout of his Appeal
• 24:10 Echoes of Bernie Madoff

Transcript

Podcast Narrator: This is misconduct, Money and Reputation, a podcast by reputation specialists Lansing's and law firm Katten.

David Masters: Hello and welcome to the episode. This is our second episode in our second season for those working in financial services, particularly in and around asset and wealth management, where we take a look at those tricky areas where regulation and reputation intersect. For listener discretion, please be advised that this episode does include sensitive and potentially distressing subject matters. My name is David Masters, Director and Asset Management Lead at reputation consultancy Lansons Team Farner.

Neil Robson: And I'm Neil Robson, financial services regulatory Compliance Partner at Law firm Katten.

David Masters: So welcome to the latest episode of (mis)Conduct, Money and Reputation, in the last episode, we jumped back into the realm of Crispin Odey, and around the time we were doing so, it was reported that Odey had visited Jes Staley's lawyers, who were at the time representing their client, in his appeal against his life ban by the FCA. The Staley Epstein saga is a story of two financiers, one who rose to be CEO of one of the most well-known banks in Britain, and another who was, it was widely thought, an advisor to the super rich, a man whose client list only included billionaires, and this obviously is still alive at the time of recording.

But all was not as it seems, which appears to be a recurring theme in this story, things not being quite what they seemed. For a start, Epstein was clearly not what he seemed, and we will look more at that in detail as we work through this case. But also, the details of Staley's relationship with Epstein appear to be a bit different to what was first espoused. Neil, perhaps you could bring us up to date on this part. So why has Staley been given a life ban by the FCA? What is the basis of his appeal, and what, if anything, would we learn if his appeal was successful or not?

Neil Robson: Okay, so if we look back 18 months because it was 18 months ago that the FCA issued a lifetime ban from the UK financial services sector to Jes Staley. All of this stems from the fact that the FCA claimed, based on evidence, that he had lied to the FCA in 2019, about the depth of his ties, his relationship with the now deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Now lying to the regulator is a big deal. There are various principles that say if you're a regulated person, especially if you're a senior manager, which is of course he very much was, then you have to be open and cooperate with the FCA and disclose to the FCA fairly and frankly, anything which the FCA requests from you. Now the current case, Jes Staley is appealing against his lifetime ban. But the FCA's Kings Counsel at the court has been saying, well he appeared to have just taken a chance in lying to the FCA because the alternative was to enhance publicly his relationship with Epstein, which he was trying to downplay. And that's what the last two weeks in court have all been about.

David Masters: So, if Staley is successful in his appeal, what does that mean? Because it doesn't clear his name from having any association with Epstein, because that's a matter of record. And it does appear through what's come out in the, in the court hearing, the tribunal hearing that, that relationship went well beyond what most people would consider to be a professional relationship, even by the standards of the 1990s. If Staley wins his appeal, what does that say?

Neil Robson: It's rather bizarre because there was a fantastic sort of summing up in the Financial Times over the weekend. So, it was published on 5th of April this year, 2025. And it begged the question, what's he trying to achieve? Because, the two weeks in court of cross-examination of additional evidence coming to light, more information, in fact, being shared in court, which of course is very public. In some ways, it's showed the world at large that his relationship with Epstein was even deeper than the FCA was originally alleging. So, 18 months ago, the FCA had obtained over 1200 documents from his former employer, emails and attachments and so on that have been sent to and from Jes Staley's email account to Epstein, which documented his friendship with him.

Now, he claimed to the FCA originally that that friendship was not deep, not thorough. It was a professional relationship rather than one of true friendship. Yet everything we've seen in court the last two weeks suggests very much otherwise. His daughter called Epstein, Uncle Jeff. It's something not quite right, when you think about the fact that Jeffrey Epstein was a convicted paedophile, sex offender, engaged in young ladies into prostitution, sex trafficking, these are things he was convicted of. So, it's rather bizarre that the amount of information that's subsequently come out in the tribunal over the last two weeks of this appeal hearing has sort of entrenched even deeper the depth of his relationship. He talks about, in some of the evidence, the fact that he very much valued his friendship. He sought Jeffrey Epstein's counsel, particularly with regard to his move to Barclays, for example.

David Masters: And this is reference that I think Epstein uses the term family. He refers to Staley as family, and I think he refers to a few other close contacts as family as well. So, there's definitely a sense in these emails, I think that that it was more than just a professional bond.

Neil Robson: Indeed, and it would appear the whole point of Jes Staley's appeal here is he's trying to clear his name. But I think it's backfired. My perspective and that indeed of the FT at the weekend is, it's backfired because he's not clearing his name here. He said originally that he had not lied to the FCA. That in fact, by the time he was joining Barclays, he didn't know Epstein very well at all anymore. Yet the evidence that's come out in the tribunal over the last two weeks suggests that his first year at Barclays, he used his daughter as a go between to send messages to Epstein. But it was still very much a solid friendship. So, it does appear he did mislead the FCA or had been mischaracterising the relationship for some years.

David Masters: I think what's very important though, is that no one's no one's accusing Jes Staley of being party to any of Epstein's egregious offenses. And I think Epstein is a little bit of a Jimmy Savile character in that a lot of this was sort of hidden in plain sight. And now when you go back through some of the media coverage around Epstein at the time, I think you can read things in a different way, and I think it's more revealing. And I've got a quote here from, a guy called Donald Trump who was at the time the host of the US version of The Apprentice. And he says “I've known Jeff for 15 years. Terrific guy.” Trump booms from a speakerphone. “He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it. Jeffrey enjoys his social life.” Now, obviously, I don't know what's happened to Donald Trump these days, but this is in a New York Times article written by, the excellent Landon Thomas Junior.

But there seems to be a bit of a hint there that maybe all was not well. There were these profiles of Epstein that were emerging in sort of the early 2000’s in the media, up until this point he had very much kept out of the limelight. And there's a sort of sense of things not being quite as they're presented. Epstein is projected as this wealth manager to billionaires into tax planning and philanthropy. And Epstein, it appears, was a great philanthropist himself. But what's very interesting is that when people are talking about that side of it, you get a definite sense from things like the New York Magazine article or from the Vanity Fair article.

Neil Robson: 2003, yeah in which they said there's many women in his life, mostly very young. And that article interestingly went into great depth about his relationship with Ghislaine Maxwell, who of course, has also subsequently been convicted of people trafficking and essentially sort of prostitution. Hindsight is great. It's 2020 vision. We can look back and read these articles again in light of the knowledge, the information that we now have. But interestingly, Epstein has been a very grey character. It's been very difficult for any media articles to truly drill down into who he was, where he came from, what drove him.

David Masters: And that Vanity Fair article is quite interesting because one, it casts quite a lot of doubt over the sort of received wisdom of Epstein's origins. So, what seems very clear, he comes from Brooklyn. He was a teacher at a private school, Dalton, and he taught the children of a banker at Bear Stearns and from that was introduced to Bear Stearns, got a job as a banker. And from then on, things start to get murky. Number one is his departure from Bear Stearns was always presented as he left Bear Stearns because he wanted to set up his own business, but I think the Vanity Fair article casts a few doubts upon that.

Neil Robson: Yeah, they suggest he was involved in insider dealing. He seems to have been a Teflon character in the sense that he was very nonstick. Nothing really stuck to him for many, many years, despite the fact that others were convicted of insider dealing. The SEC, the Securities and Exchange Commission in the US, the US regulator, they were very focused on him, but they never had enough evidence to pin anything down. So, he set up his own businesses. He was either a financial advisor to billionaires, that was one thing he pitched, at one point in the media, that he rejected people if they didn't have $1 billion for him to be advising or managing. Yet at other times, I think you found some evidence or some articles that suggest he was a very, very high-end debt collector.

David Masters: Well, I think, again, this goes back to the Vanity Fair piece which says that actually, although he claimed to be working as an advisor to the 1 billion plus club, of wealthy people, he was actually running something called International Assets Group, IAG, a consulting company, out of his apartment in the solo building on the East 66th Street in New York, though he claimed that he managed money for billionaires only in a 1989 deposition, I think, to the SEC, he testified that he spent 80% of his time helping people recover stolen money from fraudulent brokers and lawyers, the article goes on; he was also not above entering into risky tax-sheltered oil and gas deals with much smaller investors.

That rather throws into doubt a lot of the sort of established wisdom about Epstein. But also, he's been associated with a gentleman called, Leslie Wexner, who's probably most famous, for setting up the Victoria's Secret brand of women's lingerie. But in fact, the Vanity Fair article again casts some doubt upon that and says, according to the SEC and other legal documents unearthed by Vanity Fair, Epstein may have good reason to keep his past cloaked in secrecy. His real mentor, it might seem, was not Leslie Wexner, but Steven Jude Hoffenberg, who for the past few months before the SEC sued to freeze his assets in 1993, was trying to buy the New York Post. In fact, I believe he did buy the New York Post. And Hoffenberg died a few years after being released from prison, serving, I think, about 18 out of the 20 years he was he was sent down for.

Neil Robson: And he was sent down for essentially a Ponzi scheme.

David Masters: Yes!

Neil Robson: Because he was defrauding all his investors. And the SEC got hold of that, obviously sent him to prison. Epstein was involved in that in some way.

David Masters: Hoffenberg says that it was Epstein who was the architect of that Ponzi scheme. But the SEC have never charged Epstein with that.

Neil Robson: So with all his sort of bona fide financial services activities and indeed some very questionable ones, perhaps behind the scenes, in the background he seems to have been developing a very, shady ulterior parallel lifestyle, which really came to a head in 2005 when he was arrested in Florida, after two young girls had complained to their parents about what he'd been doing with them. The parents press charges. He got arrested. He was charged with child prostitution. And he was convicted of sex trafficking. That's 2005. So, he was very much somebody should have been persona non grata, frankly, at that point in time, why would you associate with somebody who's got a conviction for such horrendous and heinous crimes.

Yet to bring it back into context, Jes Staley was associating with him in some way, as indeed was Prince Andrew and many other big names that have come out quite publicly over the years. Now, it really came to a head for Epstein only in 2019 when he was rearrested for more of the same, in the sense that, there were many more complaints about him. And in fact, when he was arrested, the police raided his New York townhouse, which was and probably is still the largest private residence in Manhattan, an enormous house.

David Masters: A former school.

Neil Robson: Formerly a school, indeed. It was so vast, you know, it would be the equivalent of a small hotel, frankly, these days. And the police found thousands and thousands of videos and photographs of naked young girls, as well as child pornography. They found the safe and when they opened that, they found thousands and thousands of dollars in cash, diamonds and a fake passport, bearing his photograph but a fake name, which he'd used to get in and out of the UK, France, Spain, Saudi Arabia, various other places.

And before he could go to court, he committed suicide by hanging on the 10th of August 2019. So, it didn't go any further for him. But I think it seems quite clear from the evidence that the US has published over the years that there's no way he wouldn't have been sent down forever.

David Masters: We're touching now on something that's really important and pertinent really, to what's probably underpinning some of the Staley case as well. And that is this association. So, if we think about the names of people who are associated with Epstein, obviously everybody thinks of Prince Andrew, a textbook case in how not to try and rebuild your reputation. In fact, such a textbook case, they've turned it into a film. Twice.

Neil Robson: Several films.

David Masters: But also, the reason he rose to such prominence in the sort of early 2000’s was because he shipped or flew, Bill Clinton and Kevin Spacey and I think Chris Tucker, another actor, to Africa. This was ostensibly so that Clinton could do some high-level diplomacy, talks a lot of people around about HIV Aids, relief. And Epstein, I think is thought to have been courting various sort of senior economic figures in the region as well.

Neil Robson: So that ties in with the comment you made earlier about that he was a philanthropist, but was that a smokescreen?

David Masters: Well, this is quite an interesting one because there are obviously a lot of people who benefited from Epstein's largesse, and there are a number of scientists, and you'll find them quoted in the New York Magazine piece, in the Vanity Fair piece, and other media coverage around the time, whose research he funded, some of which very relevant and pertinent and stuff that which gets a lot of credibility today.

So, I think it goes back to this idea with Jes Staley that he was associated with this individual. A lot of other people were also associated individual. And if we’re going to think about this in reputation terms, there is a degree of forbearance because rather like Saville, he hid in plain sight. But as you’ve mentioned that relationship does seem to have continued in some form or other beyond Epstein's first arrest and that brings into consideration the sort of judgment appeal. But I think also, Jes Staley has a little bit more form with the FCA. Does he not?

Neil Robson: He does indeed actually, because it was back in May 2018, that the FCA and the PRA jointly fined Jes Staley £642,000 and required Barclays to diminish his bonus because he was failing to act with due skill, care and diligence, as is required of a senior executive at a UK bank. What had happened was that previously, back in June 2016, there'd been a whistleblowing at Barclays, and it was in connection with somebody that Jes Staley hired into Barclays, a friend of his, and he was outraged that people were trying to take down somebody that he'd appointed within Barclays. And so, he was trying to do an expose, trying to find out who'd made these complaints.

Now, whistleblowing when done properly as this was, is protected. The individual should not be exposed and challenged, they can't be fired, they're a protected person. So, in trying to find out who the whistleblower was, Jes Staley was acting well beyond the bounds of what is acceptable for a Chief Executive Officer of a big financial institution. So, the FCA was very much; “yeah, you've done something very bad here”. And in fact, the SEC in the States also said thought that it was so bad that they fined Barclays $15 million because it goes down to base principles. If you're one of the senior managers of a bank, you must have a higher standard than anybody else within the bank because, to use the old line, “the buck stops here”.

So, he was very much on their radar. In fact, that was the first enforcement case under the FCA senior managers regime. And then for this to come again, for them to find from his former employer that the emails, the documentation suggested that the relationship was significantly deeper with Epstein than he had alluded to or allowed Barclays to suggest in their prior discussions. And this case over the last two weeks is interesting because it goes to that point, he's trying to clear his name, and again, there's no suggestion that he was involved in any way with any of these girls, although he did acknowledge that he had a consensual sexual relationship whether it was a one off or otherwise, I'm not clear, but with one of Epstein's staff in Epstein's brother's apartment in New York.

David Masters: Definitely that goes beyond the realm of a professional relationship.

Neil Robson: I think that's fair to say, indeed. To kind of bring it to a head is that the FCA's Kings counsel, the FCA’s lawyers, said in the court in the summing up. “The reality is that Mr. Staley faced an unpleasant dilemma. He either told Barclays the truth, most likely ending his career and giving rise to a much further investigation immediately or he could take the chance of misleading the authority”, the FCA. FCA documents submitted to the court said he chose the latter.

David Masters: But will this tribunal then, if say for example, Staley is successful, will the ruling be that he didn't mislead the FCA. Clearly, he had a relationship with Epstein that goes beyond what was claimed. So, what is he hoping for here? What is he likely to get out of this?

Neil Robson: Well, it would seem he's trying to get the lifetime ban overturned, which seems quite unlikely, frankly, when you have read through the last two weeks of news reports, etc.

David Masters: The FT and The Guardian, the excellent Kalyeena Makortoff.

Neil Robson: So, it's sort of a bit confusing as to what he's trying to achieve. Certainly, his lawyers in the court have been making quite a lot in their appeal process that the FCA didn't follow due process. The original request about his relationship with Epstein, right at the very start of his beginnings at Barclays, were not conducted in a written format. It was a phone call. It wasn't documented properly. So essentially, part of the argument that his lawyers have been making is that he shouldn't be banned on a technicality.

David Masters: From a reputational point of view, it was always going to be challenging for him to rebuild his reputation. It's not impossible and we do see these things happening but it's going to be difficult. Irrespective, I think whether this appeal goes with him or against him, I don't think it makes a huge amount of difference. We know he had a relationship. We know it was purely beyond the professional. No one is saying that, Staley was in any way involved in what Epstein was up to. But he has one the association with Epstein, which is going to be difficult to brush off, particularly given when we think about people like Prince Andrew, etc, etc. and that Epstein is a name in the public consciousness because of Prince Andrew. He's demonstrated poor judgment in maintaining a relationship with somebody who had obviously been arrested for child sex offenses.

And then for not being completely open about it. And I think the other thing we've not had any sense of is any sense of redress or, acknowledgment that he may have made an error of judgment, that he shouldn't have continued to be associated with this person. And I think for reputational purposes, that sort of thing is what needs to happen in order really for Jes to be in a position where he could start to rebuild his reputation. Would people take the risk of doing business with him or business that he fronted, or a business that he was prominent in, and I think that would be a challenge for a lot of people.

Neil Robson: Ultimately, I think from the evidence that I've read in the press over the last few weeks, it seems very unlikely that he will overturn his lifetime ban because he lied to the FCA or was intentionally able to mislead Barclays and thereby mislead the FCA about a relationship that they asked for information on. And he wasn't open and co-operative. He didn't act with due skill, care and diligence. And they might say, in fact, ultimately, he didn't act with integrity, which is the principle one of the codes of conduct. He seems to have been slightly hazy in court about some of the information. He didn't come across as a particularly robust witness and this is his own life.

David Masters: The implication is you lied to the FCA at your peril and if you're found out, it's a life ban, and it's going to be very difficult to overturn. It's interesting because I think what we've talked about a little bit with Epstein and some of the other things, there are echoes of Bernie Madoff.

Neil Robson: Absolutely. Yeah.

David Masters: I think it's referenced in one or both of the New York and Vanity Fair articles that we've referred to, was that if he was a financial advisor, if he was a wealth manager, where were the trades? There was nothing going on with Epstein, again, something that was overlooked by many people about Bernie Madoff is the fact that he appeared to have this perpetually well performing vehicle that didn't seem to be impacted at all by what was going on in the markets, good or bad. And yet there was no trading footprint.

Madoff had become a figure of huge influence and cachet and to be seen to be an investor in Madoff, to be invited to invest in Madoff's fund was something that people took very seriously. And I know of at least one example where a private banking organisation believed that they were Madoff free. They had never invested with Madoff because his, sort of, self-administered vehicle, failed their due diligence test straightaway. But it subsequently came to light that a wealth manager within their organisation had been pressured by a client to circumvent the bank's controls, and therefore funnel money into Madoff, through that route and therefore, this own organisation's reputation was impacted because they thought they were Madoff free, and they weren't. And it seems a little bit like that with Epstein as well. People wanted to be associated with Epstein, and now everybody's trying to disprove they had any association with Epstein or the strength of their involvement with Epstein.

Neil Robson: Madoff was a toxic character by all accounts, he was sentenced to 150 years and died in jail, back in 2009. He defrauded people out of $65 billion. His family members subsequently either committed suicide, family members have changed their name subsequently. He was that toxic.

David Masters: And the implication that they were discussing Madoff at that time is quite interesting, because they were discussing, obviously a time that he'd been imprisoned and died, and then after his death, so one can only wonder what the context was. And that's another problem, I think for Jes Staley, isn't it, that a lot of stuff has come out of his appeal, which really has served only to muddy the waters of his own reputation?

Neil Robson: Very much so and if these discussions on Madoff alone, 2008 - 2011, lots of emails, lots of discussion, there’s reference to Jes Staley going out to Epstein's island in the Caribbean. This is after his first conviction, if you are really worried about your relationship with somebody and the reputational damage it could have, surely, you'd run a mile.

David Masters: Well thanks very much Neil, we will wait with bated breath to find out what happens in this case, whether the, FCA, tribunal, the upper court hearing finds in favour of Staley or remains with the FCA. But it's going to be an interesting case, something we might come back to in the future but that's all we've got time for today. So, thank you very much, my name is David Masters.

Neil Robson: And I'm Neil Robson.

Podcast Narrator: You've been listening to (mis)Conduct, Money and Reputation. Please do stay tuned for further episodes by subscribing on your favourite podcast app. You can find us by searching Lansons or Katten. This episode was recorded in the Lansons studios and brought to you by reputation specialists Lansons and law firm Katten. 

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