The chief executive of Barclays has said he is “deeply dismayed and shocked” at the “depravity and the corruption” revealed in the Epstein files, as the bank deals with the fallout of its ex-boss Jes Staley’s ties to the convicted child sex offender.
In his first public comments on the matter since the US Department of Justice began publishing documents related to Jeffrey Epstein in December, CS Venkatakrishnan said his thoughts went out to the victims of Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting child sex trafficking charges.
“I’m very, very deeply dismayed and shocked by the moral depravity and the corruption that you’re reading about in the latest set of instalments. You know, my heart really goes out to victims of this scandal and these crimes,” he said.
However, the Barclays boss – speaking as the bank reported annual profits – stopped short of commenting directly on allegations against his predecessor, Staley.
The Guardian reported last week that, in 2019, US prosecutors reviewed allegations of rape and bodily harm against Staley, including that he forced a woman to touch his genitals during a massage before raping her, and left “bloody marks” on the arms of a woman he called “Tinkerbell”.
There is no evidence that prosecutors decided to pursue the allegations. Staley, who has previously denied any wrongdoing, has not responded to the Guardian’s requests for comment made over several months, either directly or via his lawyers. He has never been charged with a crime related to the allegations.
During a UK court hearing in 2025, Staley admitted to having sex with a member of Epstein’s staff in New York, but agreed with a lawyer during cross-examination that he would describe the intercourse as “consensual”.
When Venkatakrishnan was asked whether the allegations outlined in the Epstein files had prompted any further internal reviews at Barclays, the bank’s head of media said: “We have nothing further to add on that point.”
It comes as the bank and its chair, Nigel Higgins, continue to battle a class action lawsuit in the US over claims they defrauded and misled investors over Staley’s relationship with Epstein.
The US class action suit, led by pension funds in New York and Missouri, alleges that Barclays, Higgins and Staley repeatedly misrepresented Staley’s history with Epstein to media and investors, starting in July 2019, weeks after Epstein was arrested on charges of trafficking underage girls for sex.
They claim they were ultimately defrauded, having learned about the true nature of Staley and Epstein’s relationship only after the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) publicly released findings of its investigation and banned Staley from the City in October 2023. The news caused the value of their shares and American Depositary Receipts to drop, resulting in “significant economic losses”, they argued.
Higgins and Staley have not commented on the case.
Staley had resigned from Barclays two years earlier, in 2021, over preliminary findings from the FCA’s investigation. Staley failed to overturn a ban on his return to the UK’s financial sector last year and lost out on £18m worth of pay and bonuses from Barclays as a result of the ruling.
Venkatakrishnan’s comments echoed those of the Bank of England governor, Andrew Bailey, who said last week that he was “shocked” by revelations in the Epstein files.
That included information that appears to have been shared with Epstein by the former UK business secretary Peter Mandelson regarding highly confidential government deliberations after the 2008 financial crisis. The revelations resulted in Mandelson resigning from the Labour party and House of Lords last week.
Bailey said: “I don’t want to sound pious, but this is for all of us: how is it that we live in a society in which this happened, and the cover-up happened as well? I think that is a very fundamental question that we have to ask ourselves.”
HSBC and Barclays are facing a $12bn (£8.7bn) lawsuit by a US heiress, Tanya Dick-Stock, over a Jersey trust allegedly linked to the Epstein scandal. The Times, which first reported the lawsuit, said both banks declined to comment.
Barclays posted a near-13% increase in profits to £9.1bn in 2025 and said it planned to return more than £15bn to shareholders between 2026 and 2028. Profits for the final three months of last year rose 12%.
