The Guardian reports this morning that:
Barclays’ chief executive, Jes Staley, is facing a financial penalty for an alleged breach of conduct after City watchdogs completed an investigation into the banking boss’s attempts to identify a whistleblower in 2016.
Barclays said the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) are alleging that Staley’s actions were a breach of an individual conduct rule that relates to a “requirement to act with due skill, care and diligence”. The size of the penalty has not been disclosed.
That fine should have been disclosed. But more important is this note that followed:
The bank stressed, however, that regulators are not alleging that he acted with a lack of integrity or that he lacks fitness and propriety to continue in his role as chief executive.
Ask yourself this: could you explain the fact that the CEO has been fined for a breach of the rules concerning individual conduct that clearly related to a matter of personal self-interest and then suggest that he did not lack integrity to a class of 11-year-olds? If you can, then Barclays’ claim stacks. All I can say is that I could not do that with any credibility. And I can tell you, they would not believe you if you tried.
This is from the man who insisted the Crystal Methodist was just fine to run a bank, indeed that the entire management structure had no banking qualifications or training was just peachy.
There should be misbehaviour that is punished with a fine and not expulsion. Kicking people is funbut has a cost, there is a reason all senior execs dream of working for private equity (more pay, less publicity). As a side note anyone whining that ceos are stealing from shareholders has to explain why ceos in privately held companies make so much. And indeed in banks often the ceo is not the most highly paid employee.
Yeah. But he has a point. The man must have known that trying to identify a whistle blower was not likely to please the authorities. Whatever the rights and wrongs of snitching on your employer, the government likes to protect its narks.
The problem is with a law that so obviously conflicts with human nature. If I was paying good money to the little bast@rd I would want to know who he was too.
Why is trying to find a whistle-blower a “breach of … a requirement to act with due skill, care and diligence”?
I can see why it’s against the rules, and I can see why it might be regarded as unethical. But the only lack of “due skill, care and diligence” I can see is the lack of care that got him caught.
So a whistle-blower blows the whistle. I can’t help thinking it would be difficult to have full disclosure such that the company can either defend itself, or alternatively, correct the practice and address the cause of the problem identified without the source of the whistle becoming known…..
nautical Nick
I’d have thought that the disclosure of the alleged malfeasance/incompetence/criminality of the company would be sufficient for them to know what went wrong and thus to fix it. I don’t see how knowing who it was reported it to others would help them identify what went wrong.
BlokeInTejas – “I don’t see how knowing who it was reported it to others would help them identify what went wrong.”
I think that knowing the person making the complaint would tell you a great deal about how credible the complaint was.
In his latest blog post, Spud decides to lecture everyone on “commitment”. A man who put trying to get into the House of Lords and being called “Professor” above his marriage to his seriously ill wife.
Cunt.
Noel, what’s the story there? I remember he seemed to have moved to Ely without his wife, but I didn’t realise there was more behind it.
@ Bloke in Tejas
Allegedly the reason for Staley seeking to discover the the identity of the “whistleblower” was because he assumed that it was a malicious act to discredit an innocent person, not the act of an altruistic volunteer attempting to correct malfeasance. So the identification of the “whistleblower” wasm in fact, relevant to establishing the facts or fidction of the case.