Top Barclays banker’s wife may have secured $4 bln deal through wife of Qatar PM

A top Barclays banker has created a flutter in London’s financial circles by asserting that his then-wife Diana was behind a 3.25 billion pound ($4.08 billion) rescue deal during the 2008 financial crisis, rather than businesswoman Amanda Staveley.

Staveley is suing Barclays in the UK High Court for 1.5 billion ($2.01 billion), saying the bank misled her while she worked to secure the deal that rescued the bank.

Barclays top banker Roger Jenkins is accused of misleading Staveley’s private equity firm PCP Capital Partners.

Read more: UK $2 bln lawsuit against Barclays over Qatar financing begins

PCP had parallel investments in Qatar and Abu Dhabi in October 2008, but the firm “claims it would not have done so if it had known Qatar had a different deal. Barclays denies wrongdoing and says PCP’s claim is ‘built on sand,’” the Financial Times reported.

In her witness statement, Staveley said she found out years after the deal was concluded that Barclays paid Qatar and additional 66 million pounds for the state’s role in securing UAE funds during the capital raising round.

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Yahoo news reported that Roger “did not tell [Staveley] that Barclays was paying additional fees of 346 million pounds to Qatari investors, and a 2 billion pound loan to the State of Qatar.”

Barclays disputes Staveley’s claim saying she is being given credit that she does not deserve and the bank’s lawyers have described PCP’s damages claim as “opportunistic and speculative.”

Staveley argues that she played an instrumental role in the 2008 deal. However, in emails shown in court Roger said that Staveley said that his wife had befriended the wife of Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim bin Jaber al-Thani, the former prime minister of Qatar.

Roger Jenkins claimed in a London court Diana should receive the credit behind swinging the deal, rather than Staveley. Roger and Diana Jenkins divorced in 2012.

Read more: Ex-Barclays executive says Qatar wanted to be its ‘special’ Gulf partner

The bank’s lawyers also said that Staveley’s firm made no loss and that the evidence was not supported by documentation.

Staveley, in a written statement, said that she had been fundamental in brokering the deal and that her approach to Barclays was “not set up by Jenkins’ wife or by Sheikh Hamad.”

In February, Jenkins and two other former Barclays’ executives, Thomas Kalaris and Richard Boath, were cleared of fraud charges of over a 4 billion pound ($5.2 billion) investment deal with Qatar. The allegations were that lucrative terms were given to the Gulf country which was hidden from the market and other investors.

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