(Bloomberg) -- Barclays Plc said the U.K. Serious Fraud Office is attempting to reinstate fraud charges against the bank stemming from its 12 billion-pound ($16-billion) fundraising with Qatar during the 2008 financial crisis.
The British prosecutor on Monday asked the High Court to reinstate all of the charges against both the holding and operating company that were dismissed by a lower court in May, the lender said Tuesday in a statement. The SFO confirmed the application. Barclays said it had expected the appeal.
The court dismissed two charges of “conspiring with certain former senior officers and employees of Barclays to commit fraud,” Barclays said in May. The court also tossed out two charges of unlawful financial assistance, one against the bank and another against its holding company, in relation to a $3 billion loan provided to Qatar at the time.
Barclays had been on a good run with regulators recently, including settling a long-running U.S. probe into the sale of toxic mortgage bonds for half the penalty prosecutors initially wanted, and Chief Executive Officer Jes Staley escaped with only a fine after a U.K. investigation into his attempts to uncover a whistle-blower.
Four former executives from the bank are also facing prosecution over the Qatar deal that allowed Barclays to avoid a state bailout during the financial crisis. At the heart of the case are two advisory services agreements with Qatar Holding LLC totaling 322 million pounds, the nature of which are now being questioned.
The shares of the bank rose as much as 1.9 percent at 10:23 a.m. in London trading.
To contact the reporter on this story: Franz Wild in London at fwild@bloomberg.net
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Anthony Aarons at aaarons@bloomberg.net, Christopher Elser
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