High stakes deceit as markets floundered

A Barclays Bank senior executive made fraudulent misrepresentations amounting to ‘serious deceit’ in its dealings with an investor during the 2008 global financial crash, the High Court has held.

However, claimant PCP Capital Partners was awarded no damages. The case, PCP v Barclays Bank [2021] EWHC 307 (Comm), concerned Barclays’ desire to avoid a state bailout as financial markets faltered. Instead, Barclays scrambled to raise the required capital privately from PCP, which invested £3.25bn, and the Qatari State.

Amanda Staveley, PCP CEO, contended that on three separate occasions senior Barclays executive Roger Jenkins told her PCP would get ‘the same deal’ as Qatar. She claimed that, on the contrary, Barclays paid additional ‘disguised fees’ of £280m and £60m to Qatar.

Delivering judgment in the Commercial Court, Mr Justice Waksman found Barclays, acting through Jenkins, made fraudulent misrepresentations to Staveley. He found that Barclays offered additional benefits to the Qatari investors. He criticised evidence given by Jenkins and John Varley (another Barclays executive) while accepting the ‘essential truth’ of what Staveley said.

However, he did not award PCP damages because he thought it impossible that PCP would have been able to raise enough debt funding during the financial crisis to complete the deal. Hence, no loss was incurred.  

Quinn Emanuel partner Richard East, acting for PCP, said: ‘Despite Barclays’ attempts to besmirch Ms Staveley’s character during six days of no holds barred cross examination, this judgment makes clear that Ms Staveley was a reliable and honest witness and that by contrast, Barclays was dishonest in its dealings with PCP and misled Ms Staveley as to the true nature of its deal with Qatar.

‘It is disappointing that, despite the judge finding that Ms Staveley was a tough, persistent, clever and able negotiator, that he found ultimately that she could not have completed the deal which she had put in place and hence no loss was suffered. This is a surprising outcome. 

‘We hope that the regulators will have a close look at this judgment and the conclusions the judge reaches on the behaviour of senior personnel within Barclays.’