Financier Amanda Staveley loses High Court battle with Barclays
Financier Amanda Staveley who sued Barclays over the behaviour of bank bosses when negotiating investment deals during the financial crash has lost her court battle.
The high-profile trial centred around the claim that Barclays gave Staveley’s private equity firm PCP Capital Partners less favourable treatment than other parties in the emergency £7.3bn fundraising that saved the bank from a state bailout in 2008.
The trial heard claims that former Barclays’ bosses Richard Boath and Roger Jenkins allegedly called the businesswoman a “dolly bird” and a tart.
The bank disputed her allegations and today Judge Waksman said the claim “as a whole must fail”. Barclays welcomed the ruling.
“PCP is not entitled to any of the damages it sought by refernece to its primary claim. I also rejected its secondary claim to the effect that even if it did not obtain the finance, it would instead have obtained remuneration in the form of half of the warrants which were provided to the SPVs as part of the subscription,” he added.
PCP lawyers argued the firm missed out on £660m after Barclays allegedly made deals with its largest investor, the Qatar state, offering it superior terms on its £2bn investment.
Richard East, senior partner at Quinn Emanuel who represented PCP, said: “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.”
Staveley said: “The evidence at trial was clear and unequivocal; PCP was an investor in the transaction and played an integral role in the capital raising, which ultimately prevented the bank from being nationalised.”