Barclays was 'aggressive' with regulators for 'years', said FSA Lord Turner, chairman of the Financial Services Authority (FSA), wrote to the chairman of Barclays Marcus Agius complaining about a "pattern of behaviour over the last few years" in which Barclays repeatedly appeared to push the rules. In the letter, released as Mr Agius appeared before the Treasury Select Committee, Lord Turner said: "Barclays often seems to be seeking to gain advantage through the use of complex structures, or through arguing for regulatory approaches which are at the aggressive end of interpretation of the relevant rules and regulations." Lord Turner listed six examples to back his assertion. They included the controversial Protium affair in 2009 when the bank set up a structure to shift £7.4bn of toxic assets off its balance sheet. The FSA said that the move, "was perceived by many external commentators as a convoluted attempt to portray a favourable accounting result." Another was the "confusing and potential misleading impression created by Barclays" in a discussion over capital levels under new stress tests. Lord Turner said the FSA felt Barclays "were seeking to "spin" its messages in an unhelpful fashion." Mr Agius was also warned that Barclays" tax avoidance schemes, while legal, had an impact which was "clearly unfavourable to the degree of external trust in Barclays" approach to issues such as tax, regulation and accounting." In a return letter, Marcus Agius admitted that it was "clear that the tone from the top is one of the FSA's concerns." Yesterday he told the Committee he accepted Barclays had sometimes gone too far. A separate letter from September 2010 showed the FSA also raised "issues" about Mr Diamond when Barclays applied for approval to promote him to chief executive. The FSA said at the time it expected Mr Diamond to improve his relations with regulators, distance himself from his close BarCap executives, beef up his retail banking experience, and set the "right culture, risk appetite and control framework across the whole organisation."