Crispin Odey has claimed that the Financial Conduct Authority was under “political pressure” before it decided to ban the hedge fund boss from the sector and fine him £1.8mn for a “lack of integrity”.
In a legal challenge that Odey has brought against the FCA’s decision, his lawyers also argued that the UK financial regulator had an “agenda” and that its actions contributed to the demise of his fund Odey Asset Management.
The FCA imposed the ban last year over the way Odey, 67, responded to allegations of sexual harassment and assault. The decision was based on his alleged attempts to frustrate OAM’s efforts to address complaints about his behaviour and bring disciplinary proceedings.
Odey’s case at the Upper Tribunal is due to go to trial in March. Lawyers for the regulator accused him at a pre-trial hearing on Monday of advancing “irrelevant” theories unsupported by evidence, and called on a judge to strike out parts of his case.
In court papers, lawyers for Odey said the FCA had “sought a totemic case” in its crackdown on sexual harassment and other forms of non-financial misconduct (NFM) in the City of London. This “agenda and the promotion thereof caused pressure” on OAM’s executive committee to attempt to oust him, they said.
Statements that the FCA gave to parliament demonstrated “very real political pressure the Authority was under during his period to demonstrate that it was taking NFM seriously”, Odey’s lawyers argued in court documents.
They also argued that the demise of OAM, whose regulatory authorisation ceased in 2024, “was ultimately due to the adverse publicity caused by Mr Odey’s very public issues concerning allegations of sexual misconduct and the Authority’s very public response to them”.
Lawyers for the FCA, led by Clare Sibson KC, said in written arguments that some of Odey’s assertions were “wholly irrelevant and unsupported by any evidence”.
Sibson told the court: “It is not true that anything the authority did — its NFM agenda or its response to very public allegations — had any impact on the closure of the firm at all.”
At the heart of the case is whether Odey demonstrated a lack of integrity by twice removing OAM’s executive committee — in late 2021 and again in early 2022 — as it attempted to hold a disciplinary hearing regarding his conduct.
The executive committee had given him a final written warning in early 2021 after an internal investigation of Odey’s treatment of female staff found he had at times behaved inappropriately. The final written warning stated that he could no longer touch staff or interact with female employees other than on internal systems about work matters.
Lawyers acting for the FCA outlined Odey’s position, which is that the final written warning was “draconian” and amounted to an “encroachment on his freedoms and rights as a citizen”.
Odey’s lawyers argued that the executive committee had itself been under pressure to decide he “should be exited”. They cited a memo between OAM’s executive committee and law firm Simmons & Simmons in late 2021, in which a lawyer advising the committee described him as being “toast”.
The lawyer said Odey was “toast” and “will be found by FCA” not to be a fit and proper person to perform regulated activities, adding: “Final nail in coffin. Firm is different — do you want to go down with him?”
Odey separately faces a five-week trial in June that will combine a libel claim against the Financial Times, which in 2023 published sexual misconduct allegations from 19 women against him, and personal injury claims brought by five women against him. He has strenuously denied both sets of allegations.
