Britain's top bank lobbyist has apologised for "wrong" and "inappropriate" remarks he made about Amanda Staveley, the financier suing Barclays - his former employer - over the cash call that kept it afloat during the 2008 financial crisis.
Sky News has seen a memo sent by Stephen Jones, chief executive of UK Finance, to the trade association's employees on Friday, in which he said he could not defend "wholly inappropriate" comments he made 12 years ago about Ms Staveley.
Mr Jones, who at the time of the banking crash was a senior Barclays executive and has gone on to become one of the City's most respected figures, is understood to have made the remarks during a period in which Ms Staveley was helping to negotiate a huge capital injection into the UK bank by Abu Dhabi-based funds.
Since March, the UK Finance chief has played a key role in devising with the Treasury the coronavirus financing schemes which have channelled tens of billions of pounds of state-guaranteed loans to small and medium-sized businesses.
In his note to colleagues, Mr Jones said: "I wanted to take this opportunity to address the recent media coverage you may have seen which relates to my conduct in 2008 and which has arisen in the context of an ongoing civil action against Barclays by PCP [Capital Partners, Ms Staveley's firm]/ Amanda Staveley.
"The media coverage references correspondence from 2008 and transcripts of internal telephone calls in which I made private comments about Ms Staveley and the claimant company PCP.
"The comments I made at this time are wholly inappropriate and do not meet the standards of language and behaviour we rightly expect.
"I regret making these comments and I cannot defend them."
The transcripts of those internal calls between Barclays executives could be read aloud in court if, as expected, Mr Jones is called to give evidence at the trial in mid-July.
Ms Staveley alleges that Barclays deceived her over the substantially higher fees it separately paid to Qatari investors which helped bail out the bank and keep it out of the clutches of the government.
The trial, which began earlier this month, continues, and Barclays denies wrongdoing.
A friend of Mr Jones said he was likely to write to Ms Staveley's lawyers this weekend to convey his apology to her.
City sources said the UK Finance chief this week offered to step down as a judge of the Women in Banking and Finance Awards, due to be held in September, because of the growing furore over his remarks.
His offer, which was made to avoid distracting from a focus on the awards themselves, had been accepted by the organisers, they added.
:: Listen to the Daily podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Spreaker
The tone of Mr Jones' remarks about Ms Staveley - who is separately fronting a consortium bidding to take control of Newcastle United FC - has emerged just days after UK Finance announced that it had achieve gender equality on its board.
Its female directors include some of the most prominent figures in Britain's financial services sector, such as Charlotte Crosswell, the chief executive of UK Finance; Charlotte Duerden, UK country manager for American Express; and Clare Woodman, Europe, Middle East and Africa chief executive for Morgan Stanley's institutional securities group.
UK Finance is unusual among City organisations in also being broadly gender-balanced across the rest of its workforce.
Mr Jones, who took charge of UK Finance when it was formed three years ago, was previously the chief financial officer of Santander UK, the Spanish-owned lender.
Since taking up the industry-wide role, he has been heavily involved in a Treasury-sponsored initiative to improve diversity across the financial services sector.
"As I hope you know, I am and have always been a strong advocate for diversity in all respects," he wrote in his staff memo.
"I am proud of what we have achieved so far at UK Finance in this context but know we have more to do both as a company and as an industry.
"My remarks in 2008 were wrong at the time and are wrong now.
"I want to apologise to you all for letting you down in not having conducted myself at the time in the way that we all expect of one another."
Mr Jones declined to comment further on his memo when contacted by Sky News this weekend.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiY2h0dHBzOi8vbmV3cy5za3kuY29tL3N0b3J5L2JhbmtpbmctbG9iYnktY2hpZWYtYXBvbG9naXNlcy1mb3Itd3JvbmctcmVtYXJrcy1hYm91dC1zdGF2ZWxleS0xMjAwNTgzNNIBZ2h0dHBzOi8vbmV3cy5za3kuY29tL3N0b3J5L2FtcC9iYW5raW5nLWxvYmJ5LWNoaWVmLWFwb2xvZ2lzZXMtZm9yLXdyb25nLXJlbWFya3MtYWJvdXQtc3RhdmVsZXktMTIwMDU4MzQ?oc=5
2020-06-13 09:17:38Z
CBMiY2h0dHBzOi8vbmV3cy5za3kuY29tL3N0b3J5L2JhbmtpbmctbG9iYnktY2hpZWYtYXBvbG9naXNlcy1mb3Itd3JvbmctcmVtYXJrcy1hYm91dC1zdGF2ZWxleS0xMjAwNTgzNNIBZ2h0dHBzOi8vbmV3cy5za3kuY29tL3N0b3J5L2FtcC9iYW5raW5nLWxvYmJ5LWNoaWVmLWFwb2xvZ2lzZXMtZm9yLXdyb25nLXJlbWFya3MtYWJvdXQtc3RhdmVsZXktMTIwMDU4MzQ
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar