UK watchdog fines Barclays $55 million for charges paid in 2008 fundraising By Reuters

LONDON (Reuters) -Britain’s Monetary Conduct Authority (FCA) stated it might superb Barclays (LON:) 50 million kilos ($55 million) for its failure to reveal charges paid to Qatari entities throughout its monetary crisis-era fundraising.

The superb dates again to the peak of the 2008-9 disaster, when Barclays scrambled to lift funds from abroad buyers together with Qatar in an effort to keep away from a state bailout.

The British financial institution paid undisclosed charges to Qatari funds concerned in its rescue, the FCA stated, which have been calculated “particularly by reference to the Qataris’ calls for” fairly than advisory companies that Barclays had stated it anticipated to obtain.

The FCA stated that info would have been “extremely related” to shareholders and buyers, in a state of affairs the place the prices of the deal have been already seen as extremely costly.

“Barclays has referred the findings of the Regulatory Selections Committee to the Higher Tribunal for reconsideration,” a spokesperson for the financial institution stated.

The delay over the proposed superb comes as a result of the FCA stayed proceedings within the case whereas the Critical Fraud Workplace pursued expenses in opposition to three former Barclays bankers over the fundraising.

All three have been acquitted in February 2020, leaving the FCA’s potential superb because the final motion hanging over the British financial institution in relation to the deal.

The Qatar Funding Authority, which nonetheless holds a stake in Barclays, stated in 2020 it remained a “dedicated shareholder, investor and companion to Barclays”, and was neither investigated nor accused of wrongdoing.

($1 = 0.8970 kilos)