Amanda Staveley said she is considering an appeal after the High Court ruled against her receiving hundreds of millions of pounds of damages from Barclays PLC (LON:BARC) over her allegations that her company was owed money for work during the financial crisis.
The judge said on Friday that Barclays had been guilty of “serious deceit” over how it negotiated with Staveley and her PCP Capital Partners company during the credit crunch in 2008, but still denied the application for damages and dismissed the claim.
Judge David Waksman said PCP had “succeeded on liability, [but] has failed on causation and loss with the result that the overall claim fails”.
Staveley alleged that PCP missed out on £660mln in gains because Barclays behaved deceitfully.
Speaking after the ruling on Friday, Staveley said that she was considering an appeal. “In spite of Barclays’ efforts to question my character and credentials, the court has recognised my abilities as a businesswoman and the truth of my account of events,” she said.
“The judgment confirms what I have said from the outset and repeated in my evidence; a senior executive at Barclays repeatedly lied to me when seeking private investment in the bank during the 2008 financial crisis.
“The evidence at trial was clear and unequivocal; [her private equity firm PCP Capital] was an investor in the transaction and played an integral role in the capital raising, which ultimately prevented the bank from being nationalised.
“I will be taking advice on appealing the judge’s decision not to award damages.”
Staveley had asked for £819mln in damages through a civil lawsuit filed by her PCP Capital Partners investment advisory firm, over the bank’s emergency fundraising in 2008.
Barclays raised £7.2bn from Qatar's sovereign wealth fund in October of that year to avoid the same sort of bailout from the UK government that saved rivals RBS and Lloyds.
PCP Capital invested £3.3bn in Barclays on behalf of Abu Dhabi’s Sheikh Mansour bin Zayed Al Nahyan, but Staveley claims that she lost out on fees because Barclays gave her worse terms compared to other investors, such as the state of Qatar.
The financier said these terms were among the reasons that she was ousted as an investor and cost £660mln in lost gains.
She initially claimed up to £1.5bn in damages but it was then reduced.
A Barclays spokesperson said on Friday: “We welcome the court’s decision to dismiss PCP’s claim in its entirety and award it no damages.”