Amanda Staveley loses High Court fight with Barclays over damages

A businesswoman who sued Barclays for hundreds of millions of pounds has lost her High Court battle.

Amanda Staveley, 47, said her private equity firm, PCP Capital, was owed money for work during the financial crisis.

Barclays raised billions of pounds during the crisis from Middle East backers, helping it avoid a UK government bailout.

The court also heard about complaints about the behaviour of bank bosses.

Barclays welcomed the decision, but Ms Staveley said immediately after the ruling that she was considering an appeal.

She said: "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.

"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; PCP was an investor in the transaction and played an integral role in the capital raising, which ultimately prevented the bank from being nationalised.

She added that she would be "taking advice on appealing the judge's decision not to award damages."

The financier had claimed Barclays concealed the terms of its complex fundraising, rather than disclose them to the financial markets as was required.

However, Mr Justice Waksman, who heard evidence at a trial in London during the summer of 2020, said her claim "as a whole must fail".

Lawyers representing PCP had told the judge that an initial damages claim was for a sum between £1.6bn and £400m. But that was scaled back over the course of the trial to amounts between around £830m and around £600m.