(Bloomberg) -- Ex-Barclays Plc executive Richard Boath will have to wait until May to pursue a suit against the bank over his dismissal after a London employment tribunal postponed the case because of a related criminal investigation.
Judge Guy Prichard said Wednesday that the case would be adjourned until May 23 to allow U.K. prosecutors time to make charging decisions. The tribunal has been filled with lawyers and journalists over the last week as parties have fought over whether the case should be kept out of the public domain because Boath is a suspect in a U.K. Serious Fraud Office investigation.
The SFO opened an investigation in 2012 into 322 million pounds ($402 million) in fees Barclays paid Qatari investors for a loan as part of a wider 7 billion-pound fundraising during the 2008 financial crisis to avoid a state bailout. Boath is among former executives the agency is treating as suspects. The SFO sought to keep the case private to avoid ‘witness contamination,' while Boath and the media have been fighting to have the trial in public.
It is rare for a case of such significance to be heard at London's employment tribunals, where winnings are capped at about 80,000 pounds unless claimants can prove they were victims of discrimination, or were fired for whistleblowing. As well as unfair dismissal, Boath has a pay dispute with the bank and claims he was a whistleblower.
Boath's trial was scheduled to last seven days. The SFO's application to have the case heard in private, usually a formality decided in less than a day, ended up consuming the entire block as lawyers instructed on behalf of Boath, Barclays, the prosecutor and the press were unable to convince the judge to make a decision. The first week of the tribunal was spent deliberating whether even the privacy application should be heard in private.
The sensitivity centers on an interview Boath gave the SFO in 2014 as part of its investigation, which was disclosed to Barclays and, according to submissions made by Boath's lawyer, was the reason the bank fired him.
“The bank wants to use counsel in the criminal proceedings to cross examine the claimant in private with no fear that anything it chooses to say or do be subject to adverse press comment,” Boath's lawyer Jonathan Cohen said.
Edward Brown, a trial lawyer for the SFO in the Barclays Qatar case, also told the tribunal there "may be some slippage" with the prosecutor's deadline for making decisions about charges. The agency told another court twice this year it would make decisions by the end of the first quarter of 2017.
The contents of the interview must be kept private "not solely to ensure the SFO is successful in any prosecution, it is to make sure the evidential record is preserved as much as it reasonably can be," Matthew Parker, a trial lawyer for the SFO, said in the privacy application.
To contact the reporters on this story: Patrick Gower in London at pgower@bloomberg.net, Suzi Ring in London at sring5@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net, Christopher Elser, Keith Campbell
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