The Serious Fraud Office has upped the stakes in the case of the controversial $3 billion Qatari financing that saved Barclays from a taxpayer bailout in 2008, by extending the charge of ‘unlawful financial assistance’ to the operating company, Barclays Bank plc, as well as the parent, Barclays plc. Four senior former Barclays employees, including the then chief executive John Varley, are already due to stand trial early next year on the same and other fraud-related charges. The significance of the SFO’s move is that Barclays Bank plc stands in danger of losing its licences to run banking businesses, including branch networks, in the UK and elsewhere if convicted of a serious criminal offence.
As this decade-old saga rumbles on, Barclays’s reputation remains unpurged. Its share price remains stuck at a quarter of its pre-crash level, and its annual results, due out next week and expected to look favourable in terms of the performance of the current management team, won’t make much difference to investor sentiment because the past still looms so large.
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