Authorities in the UK are probing allegations that Barclays Bank made a loan to the Qatar Investment Authority for it to invest in the bank at the height of the 2008 financial crisis in order to avoid a government bailout, according to a report in the Financial Times.
In a story published this morning, the FT said two sources “familiar with the situation” independently informed it of the investigation into the alleged loan.
As previously reported, it is already known that Barclays is under investigation by the Serious Fraud Office and Financial Services Authority over fees it paid to the QIA in 2008 were adequately reported. These latest revelations however were not previously known.
According to the FT, if true, such an arrangement could contravene market regulations. The newspaper quotes Peter Hahn, a former banker at Citi now at Cass Business School as saying: “The concept of lending money to any investor to purchase your own shares raises a series of immediate questions about disclosure and other regulatory issues.”