More than a decade after the 2008 financial crisis that devastated the lives of thousands, three former executives of Barclays PLC, a British multinational bank, were acquitted of fraud charges related to market manipulation.
In a headline making decision that was announced in February 2021, Roger Jenkins, Richard Boath and Thomas Kalaris were acquitted by a UK jury following a five-month trial. According to The Wall Street Journal, the charges of conspiracy to commit fraud involved “allegedly misleading markets and investors over capital-raising agreements with Qatar Holding LLC and Challenger Universal Ltd. worth $15 billion in June and October of 2008”.
The three former executives were amongst the top decision makers at Barclays during the 2008 crisis, holding positions as head of Middle Eastern Business, head of the European Financial Institutions and Chief Executive of Wealth & Investment before leaving the company.
The investigation, which began in 2012, was led by the UK’s Serious Fraud Office (SFO) which also prosecuted the bank and its former CEO John Varley in two other cases. Both of these cases were dismissed in 2018 and 2019, respectively.
Now that their names have been cleared, one of the men, Richard Boath, has spoken out against the lack of oversight into the SFO and demanded that the attorney-general investigate the agency’s checks and balances in a recent interview with The Financial Times.