Barclays PLC (LON:BARC) lawyers this week begin defending the bank against a £1.5bn civil lawsuit filed by financier Amanda Staveley over the bank’s emergency cash call during the financial crisis.
The bank raised £7.2bn in October 2008 from Qatar's sovereign wealth fund to avoid the same sort of bailout from the UK government that saved rivals RBS and Lloyds.
Staveley, whose PCP Capital Partners investment advisory firm invested £3.3bn in Barclays on behalf of Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, claims that she lost out on fees because Barclays gave her “manifestly worse terms” than the other investors.
PCP was paid a £30mln fee.additional fee of £280m; a “yet further fee of £66m” and providing of £2bn
Staveley alleges that Barclays paid £280mln in secret “advisory” fees to the Qatari investors and gave them an “entirely unsecured” US$3bn loan for their investment in the bank.
“We believe the claim is misconceived and without merit and Barclays will be vigorously defending it,” Barclays said.