In June 2016 Barclays received two anonymous letters about a senior employee recruited earlier that year, which it described as raising concerns ‘of a personal nature’. Reports have suggested this is Tom Main, who worked with Staley at his previous employer J P Morgan.

Both the letters were identified by Barclay’s compliance function as whistleblows and investigated as such.

Staley asked the internal group information security (GIS) team to attempt to identify the author of the letters, and was then informed this was not an appropriate step. He went on to make a second request at a later date, which resulted in GIS contacting and receiving assistance from a US law enforcement agency in identifying the person, although the attempt was unsuccessful.  

Early in 2017, another whistleblower at Barclays raised concerns about Staley’s actions, reporting them to the board as suggesting the bank’s whistleblowing procedures were inadequate, since it is forbidden to search for the identity of a whistleblower in this way.

Barclays instructed law firm Simmons & Simmons to conduct an investigation. This concluded that Staley ‘honestly, but mistakenly, believed that it was permissible to identify the author of the letter.’

However Barclays said Staley had ‘made an error’ in acting as he did, and is to issue a formal reprimand, plus a ‘very significant compensation adjustment’ to his variable compensation award, which will be decided once the FCA and PRA investigations have ended.

Staley said: ‘I have apologised to the Barclays board, and accepted its conclusion that my personal actions in this matter were errors on my part. I will also accept whatever sanction it deems appropriate. I will cooperate fully with the FCA and the PRA, which are both now examining this matter.’

Barclays chairman said in a statement that the bank will be commissioning an independent review of Barclays processes and controls to determine what improvements may be required in its handling of whistleblowing.

Andrew Tyrie, chairman of the Treasury committee, said: ‘In 2013, the parliamentary commission on banking standards identified the need for financial services firms to have robust and effective whistleblowing procedures, recommending that a non-executive board member should be given specific responsibility for the effective operation of the firm’s whistleblowing regime.

‘The senior managers and certification regime is supposed to ensure that whistleblowers are protected. This is the first proper test of those rules, and it is for the regulators to test whether Barclays had the right processes in place. The Treasury committee will take a close interest in the regulators’ conclusions.’

Last night an amendment was tabled to the Criminal Finances bill, which is currently being scrutinised in the House of Lords, calling for the FCA to be given the powers to give directions as to the whistleblowing records kept by each institution and to check compliance with its directions including by audit.

The amendment also wants the FCA to award financial compensation to any person voluntarily providing information to the FCA, PRA or the Serious Fraud Office, which results in enforcement action against the institution sanctioned by way of penalty of not less than £500,000. The suggested level of compensation is between 10% and 30% of the total collected.