Barclays plc is a major British banking group headquartered in London, with a history extending over several centuries and substantial retail, corporate and investment-banking operations in the United Kingdom and internationally.
In its 2010 sanctions case, the US Department of Justice described Barclays Bank plc as a United Kingdom corporation headquartered in London.
Criminal Sanctions Case
In 2010, criminal information was filed against Barclays concerning violations of US sanctions laws.
Barclays waived indictment, acknowledged responsibility for the conduct and entered into a Deferred Prosecution Agreement with the US Department of Justice, alongside a parallel resolution with the New York County District Attorney’s Office.
The case concerned US-dollar payments processed for customers in sanctioned jurisdictions, including Cuba, Iran and Sudan.
According to the Justice Department, Barclays deliberately altered or removed identifying information from payment messages so that US financial institutions would not recognise the involvement of sanctioned parties or jurisdictions. The conduct extended over a number of years and enabled transactions that otherwise could have been stopped or investigated by US banks.
Penalty and Regulatory Response
Barclays agreed to forfeit US$298 million.
The resolution involved:
- criminal charges;
- acknowledgement of responsibility;
- substantial forfeiture;
- a Deferred Prosecution Agreement;
- continuing compliance obligations; and
- regulatory oversight involving US and UK authorities.
Yet Barclays remained open and continued operating.
The regulatory response punished the misconduct and required stronger controls without concluding that the banking institution itself should cease to exist.
Further Financial-Crime Control Failures
The 2010 sanctions case was not the last occasion on which Barclays faced serious regulatory action concerning financial-crime controls.
In November 2015, the Financial Conduct Authority fined Barclays approximately £72.1 million for failing to minimise the risk that it could be used to facilitate financial crime in connection with a £1.88 billion transaction involving politically exposed persons.
Importantly, the FCA did not establish that the transaction itself involved financial crime. The enforcement action concerned serious deficiencies in the Bank’s risk assessment, due diligence and handling of an unusually high-risk transaction.
This distinction is important. The regulatory response was directed at weaknesses in systems, governance and controls, rather than treating the existence of those weaknesses as evidence that the entire institution was criminal.
Further FCA Action in 2025
In July 2025, the FCA imposed approximately £42 million in combined penalties on Barclays in relation to separate financial-crime risk-management failures.
One case concerned Barclays’ relationship with Stunt & Co. The FCA stated that Stunt & Co received £46.8 million from Fowler Oldfield, a business subsequently connected to a major money-laundering operation. The FCA criticised Barclays for failing adequately to manage the financial-crime risks associated with the relationship.
The FCA also made clear that James Stunt was acquitted of money-laundering charges relating to money received from Fowler Oldfield, while two directors of Fowler Oldfield were convicted of money laundering in March 2025.
The regulatory findings should therefore be stated precisely: they concerned Barclays’ failures to manage financial-crime risk, not a finding that Barclays itself had participated in the underlying laundering operation.
The FCA also noted that Barclays continued to invest in a significant programme of AML remediation.
A Pattern of Regulatory Remediation
Barclays has faced other major enforcement actions concerning misconduct in areas including LIBOR and foreign-exchange markets.
These are distinct forms of wrongdoing and should not be described as money laundering.
Their relevance lies in the broader regulatory approach.
Repeated serious misconduct and control failures were addressed through:
investigation → financial penalties → accountability → stronger controls → remediation → continued supervision.
The continued existence of Barclays as a banking institution was not automatically placed in question.
Comparison with BCCI
Barclays is particularly significant in a comparison with BCCI because it is a long-established British banking institution operating within the same regulatory and political environment from which the decision to close BCCI emerged.
The argument is not that Barclays should have been closed.
It should not.
The relevant question is why the regulatory philosophy repeatedly applied to Barclays—identify the wrongdoing, hold responsible individuals and the institution accountable, strengthen controls and preserve legitimate banking operations—was not given comparable weight when considering the future of BCCI.
In BCCI’s case, serious allegations involving particular executives, accounts and transactions increasingly became associated with the character of the institution as a whole.
By contrast, misconduct and regulatory failures at Barclays were generally identified as specific sanctions violations, financial-crime control failures, benchmark manipulation or other defined misconduct, each capable of investigation, punishment and remediation without transforming the entire banking organisation into a criminal institution.
The Double-Standards Question
If deliberate criminal sanctions violations, repeated financial-crime control failures and other major misconduct at Barclays could be addressed through deferred prosecution, forfeiture, substantial fines, continuing supervision and repeated programmes of remediation while legitimate banking operations continued, why was comparable opportunity for reform and restructuring not afforded to BCCI?
A further question concerns the language used to characterise the two institutions:
Why were serious and repeated failures at a long-established British bank treated as identifiable violations and compliance deficiencies capable of correction, while wrongdoing involving particular executives, accounts and transactions within BCCI contributed to the much broader portrayal of the Bank as possessing a pervasive “criminal culture”?
The comparison does not suggest that Barclays and BCCI presented identical facts.
It raises a narrower question of regulatory principle:
Why was misconduct repeatedly separated from the continuing viability of Barclays as an institution, while that distinction was not afforded comparable weight when determining the future of BCCI?
Also read:
- US Department of Justice, “Barclays Bank PLC Agrees to Forfeit $298 Million in Connection with Violations of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the Trading with the Enemy Act”, 18 August 2010. Principal official account of the criminal sanctions case and Deferred Prosecution Agreement.
- Financial Conduct Authority, “FCA fines Barclays £72 million for poor handling of financial crime risks”, 26 November 2015. Covers the £1.88 billion transaction and deficiencies in Barclays’ financial-crime controls.
- Financial Conduct Authority, “FCA fines Barclays £42 million for poor handling of financial crime risks”, 16 July 2025. Recent example of regulatory action, remediation and continued operation rather than institutional closure.
