A true and explosive account of deceit, incompetence and cover-up orchestrated at the top of Barclays which cost them millions and destroyed a successful company in the process.
How the culture at the top of Barclays allowed its managers to dishonour agreements, deceive its customers, protect and reward a fraudster and bring a successful company to its knees simply because, in their own words, it ‘suited them’.
You will have difficulty believing it but it really did happen.
With few exceptions banks are much larger and more powerful than their clients. If this advantage is abused it can ruin the lives of individuals and be disastrous to business.
This abuse has been highlighted repeatedly over the last few years since it was revealed that banks imposed draconian penalties for customers who accidentally became one pound overdrawn against their agreed overdraft limit. As a result banks had to refund millions. More recently, the scandal of banks’ casino arms buying up junk bonds resulting in the global economy being sent into free-fall. Even more recently in the city of London, the illegal and arbitrary setting of the Libor rate which sets the bank inter-lending rate. Finally, the huge bonuses paid to their executives for failure. All of these exposed the self-serving culture of the banking industry and Barclays were in the forefront of all of these. I should emphasise at this point that the problems relate to the top management and not the counter staff who interact daily with the public and do their job with honesty and integrity.
I was a customer of Barclays Bank for over forty years and had my personal account and those of several of my businesses with them during this period. The relationship at branch level was always cordial and at no time in my banking history did I or the bank ever have cause for concern. I seldom had to ask them for assistance and any loans I did have were relatively small and of short duration and were always repaid in full and on time.
Based on this experience I naturally decided to invite Barclays to assist my new company, Overseas Villa Lda, in Portugal, which was developing a resort on the Algarve. I met with their CEO in Lisbon, and he liked the project so we agreed terms for development loans. In return I provided them with eight million euros of approved client mortgages.
Everything was going according to plan and the relationship could not have been better. Then the bank’s CEO was recalled to the UK and I had to remove my partner for fraud. The loss of the CEO left a vacuum at the top of Barclays in Lisbon, which would cause things to change dramatically for the worse.
The new directors of Barclays in Lisbon were Portuguese who refused to help with the fraudulent removal of money from the account. Our bank accounts were mismanaged by Barclays and confidential details divulged to our contractors. After asking their International Headquarters in London to intervene, the actions of three of their senior executives demonstrated mind-blowing levels of incompetence, cover-ups and skulduggery with little or no regard for the company, its customers or shareholders. Furthermore, when we asked the chairman of Barclays to intervene, he answered by helping cover it up.
This book sets out the entire story of what happened with Barclays in Portugal and at their headquarters in London whose senior management were asked to assist and it reveals what really happens at the top of Barclays. Throughout my discussions, they repeatedly pointed to their reputation and trustworthiness as a means of enticing me to sign important documents. They provided me with solemn promises which, I later learned, they had no intention of keeping.
On one of my many visits to the top floor of Barclays’ skyscraper building at Canary Wharf, which was their international headquarters and where I frequently met their directors and senior managers, I was shown a floor full of lawyers who they said love to get involved in litigation.