Crispin Odey: named and shamed

The UK’s financial watchdog has banned Crispin Odey from working in the City and fined him £1.8 million for deliberately seeking to “frustrate” investigations into sexual harassment and assault allegations against him.

So what? Strictly speaking, this is not about sex. Odey is being disciplined by the FCA for “reckless disregard” for his firm’s governance. He strenuously denies the sexual misconduct allegations and is appealing the FCA’s provisional decision in court. At the same time the regulator wants to widen the scope of its work on “non-financial misconduct” following claims it’s been moving too slowly to root out bad behaviour and sexism in the City.

The allegations against Odey, the hedge fund founder and former Conservative party donor who made his name betting against banks during the financial crisis, span a period from 1985 to 2021:

• May 2020 – Odey was charged with indecent assault over an incident in 1998, and acquitted the following year. More allegations from different women emerged later in reports by Bloomberg and The Sunday Times.
• December 2022 – Tortoise reported that four more women had come forward with similar allegations against Odey. Further reporting by the Financial Times revealed the number of women accusing Odey of abuse or harassment had risen to 13, eight of them alleging sexual assault including crude remarks, unwanted “octopus-like” touching, kissing and unwelcome proposals to be his mistress.
• Late 2023 – the total number of alleged victims rose to 20, according to the FT.
• May 2024 – three women applied to join a sexual abuse lawsuit against Odey, one of them accusing him of rape.

Odey denies all allegations and has launched a £70 million lawsuit against the FT for defamation. In a response to questions, the FCA refused to say whether it had ever opened an investigation into non-fincancial misconduct by Odey, separate from questions of corporate governance.

Exco-municated. The FCA’s decision deeming Odey “not a fit and proper person” was made on the basis

• that between December 2021 and March 2022, he fired his entire executive committee weeks before planned disciplinary hearings into his behaviour;
• that he did this not once, but twice; and
• that he also allegedly made numerous threats to the FCA.

The regulator was sent an internal report into Odey’s behaviour in 2021 which said he behaved inappropriately towards female staff. The report even outlined rules for him to cease “unwanted touching”. But Odey remained a fit and proper person on the watchdog’s register of people holding regulatory approval until he stood down in June 2023.

The FCA referred Tortoise to a letter it sent in 2023 to the Treasury Select Committee which said its investigation into Odey was focused on allegations about his dismissal of the executive committee but noted that “the nature and scope of investigations can change”.

Fit for purpose? “I think the FCA is probably relieved that it ended up an investigation into how Odey dismissed the exco,” says Guy Wilkes, a lawyer formerly employed by the regulator. He added that investigations into sexual misconduct are “not the FCA’s bread and butter.”

Should they be? The FCA says it will continue to “prioritise” work to tackle non-financial misconduct but last week it delayed until June the release of new guidance on how firms should tackle bullying and sexual harassment. Another source suggested government requests to “focus on growth” were sapping the regulator’s bandwidth.

An FCA survey of firms and FOI requests to the regulator has revealed

• a 72 per cent increase in the number of allegations of non-financial misconduct reported to firms between 2021 and 2023, a quarter of them covering bullying and harassment and 41 per cent listed as “other”;
• 26 open investigations into senior individuals for breaching code of conduct; and
• 7 individuals, including Odey, whom the FCA has sought to ban from the industry.

Name and shame. There has been plenty of heated debate over the FCA’s recent proposals to “name and shame” firms under investigation. But banning Odey, even by ulterior means, is a step towards changing what’s acceptable in the culture.

What’s more… Odey has waived the right to make representations to an FCA committee and is fast-tracking his case to court.

He’s also gathering tips: last week he was spotted in a courtroom observing the cross-examination of Jes Staley, who’s challenging the FCA over a decision to ban him over allegations he played down ties to Jeffrey Epstein.

Photograph by Harry Borden