No love lost between Barclays' John Varley and JP Morgan's Jamie Dimon.

(From Guardian Unlimited)

One is arguably Britain's pre-eminent banker, while the other is the White House's favourite financier. But there isn't much love lost between the Barclays boss, John Varley, and his counterpart at JP Morgan, Jamie Dimon. That became clear from a testy exchange in a New York bankruptcy court today.

Varley has been in the witness stand defending Barclays' $1.75bn purchase of the US brokerage arm of Lehman Brothers days after the Wall Street institution went bust in September 2008. Creditors of Lehman have accused Barclays of short-changing them to the tune of $11bn by negotiating secret discounts on the price.

In an unexpected …