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Former Barclays <BARC.L> CEO John Varley and three one-time
colleagues stand charged over deals with Qatari investors to
secure cash injections that allowed the bank, that can trace its
origins back to around 1690, to survive the crisis a decade ago.
The trial, scheduled to start on Monday and slated to last for
up to four months, is expected to begin with lengthy legal,
procedural arguments before prosecutors open their case.
Varley, who married into one of the families that helped build
Barclays, Roger Jenkins, the one-time chairman of the Middle
Eastern banking arm, Tom Kalaris, an American former wealth
division CEO and Richard Boath, a former European divisional
head, are charged with conspiracy to commit fraud.
Varley, renowned for trademark bright braces and Jenkins, now
based in California, also face a separate charge of unlawful
financial assistance - a practice of companies lending money to
fund the purchase of their own stock.
Lawyers for Boath and Kalaris declined to comment, while legal
representatives for the other defendants did not respond to
requests for comment.
When charges were filed in June 2017, a lawyer for Jenkins said
his client would vigorously defend himself against the
allegations. Boath said at the time he had no case to answer.
Barclays secured around 12 billion pounds ($15 billion) in
emergency funds from mainly Gulf investors as markets plunged in
2008, allowing it to avoid the state bailouts taken by rivals
Royal Bank of Scotland <RBS.L> and Lloyds <LLOY.L>.
Qatar Holding - part of the Qatar Investment Authority sovereign
wealth fund - and Challenger, an investment vehicle of former
Qatari prime minister Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani,
invested about 6 billion pounds in the bank.
But the SFO, which prosecutes serious white collar crime, has
charged the men over "capital raising arrangements" with Qatar
Holding and Challenger in June and October 2008 and a $3 billion
loan facility Barclays made available to Qatar in November 2008.
Qatar, a major investor in Britain, has not been accused of
wrongdoing.
Lawyers say the performance of the SFO will be under as much
scrutiny as that of the well-heeled defendants after a court
threw out its separate charges against Barclays over the capital
raising - and a judge last month halted its prosecution of
former senior Tesco <TSCO.L> supermarket managers mid-trial.
Lisa Osofsky, who took the top job at the agency last August,
has stood back from handling the Barclays case because of a
potential conflict of interest linked to her previous work.
The new year has started briskly for the SFO. Its retrial of
three former Barclays traders accused of plotting to rig Euribor
global interest rates kicks off on Jan. 14. A jury was unable to
reach a verdict in their case last year.
(Reporting by Kirstin Ridley; Editing by Keith Weir)
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