An internal investigation into Crispin Odey’s behaviour at his eponymous hedge fund uncovered 46 allegations of inappropriate conduct towards female employees, according to the UK’s financial regulator.
The allegations, spanning from 2003 to 2020, included a sexual assault and an incident in which Odey brought a skirt into the office and “required a receptionist to try it on and show it to him, ostensibly to see if it would fit his daughter”.
The number of allegations unearthed by the internal probe was revealed in a court filing by the Financial Conduct Authority as part of its legal battle against Odey, who has challenged its decision to ban him from financial services and fine him £1.8mn for a “lack of integrity”. The trial is due to be heard by the Upper Tribunal in March.
The FT has previously reported that Odey Asset Management carried out an investigation into its founder’s behaviour, which concluded in 2021 that he had behaved inappropriately towards female staff. The scale of the internal investigation’s findings has not been made public before.
The watchdog’s filing also includes details of an additional complaint against Odey, which allegedly occurred during the induction of a new employee in March 2021.
According to the regulator, the firm’s executive committee was told that Odey held the new joiner’s hand during a tour of the office and, while at lunch with her and three external guests, discussed “an anecdote about a sexual act with a secretary at a workplace, on a desk”.
Other conversation topics included “the idea of placing security cameras to record the end of meetings/dates with women” in order to document them consenting to sexual activity.
While the FCA document does not detail who raised the subjects, the new joiner considered them inappropriate and left the table once she had finished eating, the regulator said.
March 2021 was the month when Odey was acquitted of a charge of indecent assault after a criminal trial.
The FCA imposed its ban of Odey, 67, last year for allegedly attempting to frustrate his executive committee’s efforts to address internal complaints about his behaviour and bring disciplinary action against him.
Odey’s lawyers have argued in court filings that the financier had no choice but to do so because the committee’s actions had provoked an existential crisis for OAM, which would not have been able to survive without its founder.
His legal team also said during the current proceedings that it was “gratuitous and prejudicial” for the FCA to have detailed the allegations uncovered in the internal investigation in its case against him.
The alleged incident relating to the new joiner took place a month after OAM’s executive committee had issued its founder with a “final written warning”, prohibiting him from communicating with female staff about non-work matters, inviting female staff to lunch or engaging in unwanted touching, the FCA has said.
Odey then fired the executive committee twice — in late 2021 and again in early 2022 — after the committee became aware that he had potentially breached his “final written warning” and attempted to hold further disciplinary hearings over the matter, the FCA found.
Odey’s lawyers have argued in the current proceedings that these measures were “draconian” and “encroached disproportionately upon Mr Odey’s rights and freedoms as a citizen”. He has claimed his dismissal of the committee was justified because it was under “immense” perceived or real pressure from the FCA to oust him.
When the allegations regarding the new joiner’s experience came to light, the executive committee attempted to put in safeguarding measures to physically separate Odey from employees, the FCA has said.
According to the regulator, Odey rejected the proposals, telling his executive committee that “HR law did not matter here” and calling one member “fucking spineless”.
The regulator has also claimed that Odey misled clients and investors about the reasons for the shake-ups of the firm’s management. It said in its filing that his communications “obfuscated the truth that Mr Odey had unilaterally dismissed ExCo [executive committee]” and “were inaccurate, incomplete and misleading”.
Odey separately faces a five-week trial in June that will combine personal injury claims brought by five women against him and a libel case he has brought against the FT over its reporting in 2023 of 19 women’s allegations of sexual misconduct. Odey strenuously denies both sets of allegations.