Former Barclays boss Jes Staley should be banned from Britain’s finance industry for misleading statements about his relationship with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, the UK’s Financial Conduct Authority said on Monday.

Staley, 68, appeared in court flanked by his lawyers as his appeal against the FCA’s proposed ban and 1.8 million-pound ($2.3 million) fine began at London’s Upper Tribunal, in a high-stakes bid to salvage his reputation.

The FCA said in 2023 that it intended to ban Staley over a letter sent by Barclays to the watchdog in 2019, shortly after Epstein died in jail awaiting trial for sex trafficking.

The FCA says the letter contained two misleading statements about how close Staley was to Epstein and that his last contact with Epstein was “well before he joined Barclays in 2015”.