London: British regulators and Barclays have fined the bank’s Chief Executive Jes Staley a combined £1.1 million (Dh5.5 million, $1.5 million) after he tried to identify a whistle-blower who sent letters criticising an employee of the bank.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Bank of England’s Prudential Regulation Authority said on Friday they had together fined Staley £642,000. That included a 30 per cent discount for him agreeing at an early stage to settle.
Barclays imposed a £500,000 cut to his 2016 pay.
The regulatory fine is the first ever such penalty for the sitting CEO of a major bank in Britain, and cast a pall over Staley’s efforts to show the bank has improved its culture since the freewheeling days of before the 2007-8 financial crisis.
“Mr Staley’s actions fell short of the standard of due skill, care and diligence expected of a CEO in a regulated firm,” the FCA said.
Regulators said the fine was only 10 per cent of his overall pay package. Staley, a 61-year old American and former JPMorgan banker who took the helm at Barclays in December 2015, at one stage appeared at risk of losing his job over the probe.
“I have consistently acknowledged that my personal involvement in this matter was inappropriate, and I have apologised for mistakes which I made,” Staley said in the bank’s statement on Friday.
The regulatory findings will also be closely read by lawmakers keen to ensure top banking officials are held accountable for their actions at a time when there are growing calls to better protect whistle-blowers.
The regulators stopped short of saying Staley was unfit to continue in his role, after he twice attempted to find out who wrote letters raising “concerns of a personal nature” about an unidentified senior employee.
“Mr Staley acted unreasonably in proceeding in this way and, in doing so, risked undermining confidence in Barclays’ whistle-blowing policy and the protections it afforded to whistle-blowers,” the FCA said.
Video footage
Tracking down the whistle-blower became a transatlantic effort, the regulators’ report showed.
A copy of the envelope of the first letter was sent by Staley’s office via group security to a Barclays employee in the United States “who engaged with their contacts in the US to try and identify the author”.
These “contacts” provided the date, time, location and cost of buying postage for the first letter.
Group security then made a fruitless attempt to obtain “video footage” of the person who bought postage for the first letter, the report said.
It was the regulators’ first case brought under Britain’s new senior managers regime (SMR), a post financial crisis reform aimed at making top staff directly accountable for their actions.
Barclays is subject to the first ever requirements to tell regulators annually about any whistle-blowing cases made against senior managers, and any cases where Barclays has sought to identify anonymous whistle-blowers.
The bank’s “whistle-blowers’ champions”, who come under the SMR, will also have to attest personally each year on the soundness of Barclays’ whistle-blowing systems.
Barclays said in April last year it had reprimanded Staley and would cut his bonus as the two financial watchdogs launched a year-long investigation into his actions.
Authorities in the United States are still investigating the case.
