The hedge fund manager Crispin Odey will be banned from the City and hit with a £1.8m fine by the UK’s financial watchdog for deliberately attempting to “frustrate” a disciplinary process into sexual harassment allegations.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) said on Monday that Odey had shown “reckless disregard” for the governance of his hedge fund and his conduct proved he was “not a fit and proper person to perform any function related to regulated activities”.
Odey intends to challenge the decision, which relates to his behaviour between December 2021 and November 2022, in the upper tribunal.
The FCA provisional ruling comes nearly two years after the Financial Times and Tortoise Media reported claims of sexual assault and harassment against Odey from 20 women. Odey has denied any misconduct.
The allegations led to him being removed from his hedge fund business Odey Asset Management (OAM), and in October 2023 OAM announced it was closing.
“A culture of silence in which allegations of misconduct are not dealt with effectively can put consumers and markets at risk,” Therese Chambers, the joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, said. “Mr Odey repeatedly sought to evade and obstruct efforts to hold him to account. His lack of integrity means he deserves to be banned from the industry.”
The FCA notified Odey that it planned to take action against him in November. It said it believed he had breached the regulator’s code of conduct, which “required him to act with integrity”, between December 2021 and November 2022.
During that time, it said Odey had used his majority shareholding in OAM to get rid of the existing members of its executive committee, weeks before he was due to appear for a disciplinary hearing in January 2022.
Then, as the sole member of the executive committee, Odey decided to indefinitely postpone the misconduct hearing, saying he was unable to conduct it with impartiality, the FCA said.
Odey then appointed a new executive board in January 2022, but removed all members by March that year, again installing himself as sole member. Three more members were added to the board before the company finally conducted a disciplinary hearing in November 2022, nearly a year later than originally planned.
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The FCA said Odey had shown “reckless disregard” for the hedge fund’s governance, “causing OAM to breach certain regulatory requirements”.
Odey launched a £79m libel lawsuit against the Financial Times in December, saying he suffered “very significant financial loss” because of the articles alleging he had sexually assaulted or harassed multiple women.
Odey has been approached for comment.
