Reuters
A former senior Barclays investment banker claimed the lender fired him as a “direct response” to what he told fraud investigators about the bank, his lawyer said.
Barclays dismissed Richard Boath, who was global co-head of finance, earlier this year after reading transcripts of his interview with the Serious Fraud Office, Boath’s lawyers alleged in an employment tribunal, according to a Reuters report.
He is suing Barclays for unfair dismissal for whistle blowing. A spokesman for the bank declined to comment.
The SFO is investigating a round of capital raising in 2008 that enabled Barclays to avoid a state bailout.
The SFO has been investigating “certain commercial arrangements between Barclays Bank and Qatar Holdings”since 2012. In 2013, the Financial Conduct Authority alleged in its own investigation that Barclays paid around £322 million to Qatari investors in return for a £4.6 billion capital injection at the height of the 2008 financial meltdown.
Boath was interviewed in 2014 as part of the investigation. The transcript, which ran to 900 pages according to a report in The Guardian, was seen by Barclays this year after the SFO used it to boost its case to get a warrant to search the bank.
Boath was dismissed shortly after. “He will say, ‘The reason I find myself out on my ear … is because the SFO did that’,” his lawyer said, according to media reports.
The SFO petitioned the employment tribunal to keep details of the Boath interview and investigation out of the public eye. The judge is yet to rule on whether the rest of Boath’s hearing will be public.
SFO said it expects to decide whether to charge former Barclays executives by March next year.