Mercy! These CEOs. The Barometer is thinking of a new book — The Seven Things CEOs Do That Cost Them and Their Companies Dearly. Lack of candor would be one of them.
Here comes Jes Staley, CEO of Barclays. Do a search of this website and you will find the tales of his fines and troubles surrounding his actions to find out who a company whistleblower was. Now Barclays is grappling with a British investigation into whether Mr. Staley told the truth about his association with the infamous pedophile, Jeffrey Epstein.
While Scotland Yard (actually it is the U.K.’s Conduct Authority and Prudential Regulation Authority doing the work) is busy with its job, Barclays issued a statement that, for the first time, acknowledges that its CEO did indeed visit Epstein’s private Caribbean island, Little St. James, on two occasions. This was an island populated by many young girls, some as young as 11-13. However, Barclays assures that Mr. Staley was accompanied by his wife on both visits.
Barclays also indicated hat it was examining what Mr. Staley told Barclays about this issue when he was hired in 2015. The Conduct and Prudential folks have e-mails from both JPMorgan and Barclays that they are examining. JPMorgan turned its e-mails over, and the Barclays folks turned theirs over and are also perhaps perusing them as well.
Uh-oh. On so many levels.