Barclays profits hit by £2bn legal costs

Barclays (LON:BARC) reported a fall in first-half profits after legal and litigation costs dented profits.

Pre-tax profits fell from £2.3 billion to £1.6 billion after the bank were forced to payout £2 billion, including costs relating to a £1.4 billion settlement.

Barclays have been hit by a number of legal battles in recent years, including compensation linked to miss-sold mortgages and a related settlement with Department of Justice.

The bank also said profits were also affected by charges of £400 million due to PPI.

Barclays was also hit by penalties from the Serious Fraud Office for a $3 billion (£2.2 billion) loan given to Qatar in 2008, back in February.

Without taking into consideration these legal costs, pre-tax profits rose 20 percent to £3.7 billion, with the UK arm seeing a 30 percent rise to £826 million.

Chief executive Jes Staley said that the results represented the “first quarter for some time with no significant litigation or conduct charges, restructuring costs or other exceptional expenses which hit our profitability”.

He added: “In effect then, it is the first clear sight of the statutory performance of the business which we have re-engineered over the past two and a half years – Barclays’ transatlantic consumer and wholesale bank – and it is a positive sight.

“The numbers we have posted strengthen our confidence that Barclays can deliver attractive and sustainable profits, and in our ability to return a greater proportion of those profits to shareholders over time.”

Barclays shares are currently down -2.68 percent as of 14.35PM (GMT).

 

 

 

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