Judge Robert Jay discharged the jury at Southwark Crown Court involved in a landmark fraud trial of four former Barclays executives accused of paying Qatar undisclosed fees to help rescue the bank at the height of the credit crisis in 2008.
Jay told the jury on Monday he was required to discharge them, without publishing any further details due to continued reporting restrictions.
Former chief executive John Varley, Roger Jenkins, Tom Kalaris and, Richard Boath are charged with conspiring to commit fraud by false representation when Barclays raised more than $14 billion from investors in 2008, allowing the British bank to avoid a state bailout.
Prosecutors allege the bankers excluded from public documents and hid from other investors around 322 million pounds in fees paid to the Qatari investors through so-called advisory service agreements.
Qatari officials were happy to go ahead with an advisory deal, through former Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim's Challenger, as a way of receiving the fees, Boath recalled Jenkins as saying.
Boath said the idea had actually come from someone on his own team, he still had reservations about the plan.
“We can’t do a transaction in which we give one set of fees to the market or to one set of economics for one group of investors and we have a different set of economics for another set of invests, because if they found out they’ll go completely nuts. You can’t do that,” Boath was quoted.
An audio of the conversations revealed a state of tension between the two former executives, as Boath opposed the idea of a side deal because he did not think it was right to pay certain investors more than others.
“I’m not taking a hit to save John and Bob’s jobs,” Jenkins allegedly told Boath, referring to former Varley and former investment banking chief Bob Diamond.
Prosecutors said last month the defendants' concern about the deal showed they knew what they were doing was wrong, while bankers said it showed they were keen to follow the rules.
