Last year, Barclays Bank received the largest fine ever handed down by a U.K. regulator for its role in manipulating the world’s biggest foreign exchange markets. The toxic nature of the organisation’s corporate governance may be responsible for its own code word (Cadmium) to describe the five-year investigation into how it arranged a cash bailout using Middle Eastern funds during the financial crisis to stop the bank being partially nationalised.
On 20 June, the U.K.’s corporate crime agency, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), charged Barclays PLC—the parent company of Barclays Bank—and four former executives with conspiracy to commit fraud, as well as providing unlawful financial assistance over the bank’s dealings with Qatar at the height of the financial crisis.
