Three Barclays senior bankers acquitted
The Serious Fraud Office has lost its high profile seven-year case against three former Barclays employees after they were cleared of fraud charges relating to deals made with Qatar at the height of the 2008 financial crisis.
Ro9ger Jenkins (64), Tom Kalaris (64) and Richard Boath (61) all defendants acquitted after a five-month retrial in London, after the Jury took over five-hours to come with the verdict. This was the first criminal trial to examine the steps senior bankers took during the financial crisis in the UK.
Mr. Jenkins, who managed Barclays’ relationship with Qatar, Mr. Kalaris the American head of the bank’s wealth unit in 2009, and Mr. Boath, its investment banking unit’s European co-head of financial institutions.
The SFO had alleged the three had lied to the market in official documents detailing two emergency cash calls in 2008, which helped the bank to avoid a taxpayer bailout by raising £11.2 billion.
The acquittals follow that of John Varley, Barclay’s CEO in 2008, who was cleared by a judge during an earlier trial last year. Fraud charges against Barclays as a corporate defendant were scrubbed even before the trial.
The anti-fraud agency alleged the Barclays defendants had funneled secret fees of £322m to Qatar and its at that time prime minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al Thani, in exchange for investment across two fundraisings in June and October 2008. The charges carrying a 10-year maximum sentence turned on an advisory services agreement (ASA) signed with Qatar at the time of the June fundraising and extended in October 2008.
The original ASA signed by Mr. Varley was just six paragraphs long and had the amount handwritten.
The SFO alleged that the ASA was a dishonest mechanism to pay the Qataris the mega fees they demanded for investing.
But the defendants maintained the side deals were genuine signed off by lawyers and designed to help expand Barclays’ Middle Eastern business and win business from gas-rich Qatar.
An SFO Spokesperson said, “Our prosecution decisions are always based on the evidence that is available and we are determined to bring perpetrators of serious financial crime to justice.”
Mr. Boath, on leaving the Old Bailey said “ I am very relieved about the verdict, particularly given that I was cleared in 2017 by the Financial Conduct Authority. The SFO should never have brought the case”.