Crispin Odey was described as ‘sex pest’ by head of his hedge fund, court hears | Financial Conduct Authority

Multimillionaire financier Crispin Odey was described as a “sex pest” and sociopath by the chairman of his hedge fund and blamed the sedatives he was taking for an incident in which he allegedly groped a female staff member’s breasts, a court heard.

The Brexit-backing hedge fund chief’s behavior was put under the microscope on the first day of his case against the financial services regulator over his banishment from the city.

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) last year fined Odey £1.8 million and banned him from the financial services industry.

The court found he had acted with a “lack of integrity” by trying to obstruct an investigation by his hedge fund into allegations of sexual harassment, which he denied.

Odey had previously brought a £79 million libel lawsuit against the Financial Times, which published allegations about his behavior towards young female staff. The fund called Odey Asset Management (OAM) was closed following the allegations.

He also faces personal injury claims from five women, including one who accused him of rape, which he also denies.

These cases are planned to be heard together in joint hearings in June.

Odey filed a separate lawsuit against the FCA on Tuesday over the disciplinary action taken by the FCA in response to his alleged obstruction of an internal investigation into his conduct launched at OAM in September 2020.

Odey is expected to tell the top court in London that the FCA pre-determined the outcome of its investigation into him and that he was trying to save his job rather than protect his own position first.

On Tuesday, FCA lawyers said Odey took a “severely unethical position” and violated City rules by using his authority as a majority shareholder to obstruct an investigation into his conduct to protect himself.

The FCA alleges Odey was not a fit and proper person to lead a financial services company, showed a “reckless disregard” for compliance and was “contemptuous” of its internal disciplinary processes.

Odey’s lawsuit against the watchdog had previously led to an internal report into his conduct uncovering at least 46 historical allegations of inappropriate behavior toward female employees.

The court heard an employee of Simmons & Simmons, a law firm appointed to investigate Odey’s behaviour, told the FCA that Odey had touched female staff without their consent and that the junior staff felt they “couldn’t stop” him due to his seniority.

In one incident told in court, Odey began giving a staff member a shoulder massage before “touching her breasts”. She screamed and ran out of the room. He allegedly admitted this during internal disciplinary procedures but blamed it on the sedative he had taken earlier in the day.

The court heard the incident was described as “part of a culture of extreme sexual harassment at OAM which was accepted as part of the employment agreement”.

In his opening submission to the court, Odey challenged the FCA’s view of his integrity by pointing to witness statements given to the regulator by former OAM chief executive Tim Pearey, in which he praised Odey’s “brutal honesty”.

FCA lawyers pointed out that Pearey said Odey had proven to be a “sex pest” and “sociopath.”

Pearey told the FCA: “I think he’s got a real problem. I think he’s having trouble controlling himself.”

The court heard the financier dismissed two executive committees tasked with examining his conduct and made “increasingly erratic and aggressive” threats to close the firm if the process continued.

The FCA alleges he called a colleague a “fucking spineless” for supporting the disciplinary process and said human resources were “not important” because the only concern should be his ability to manage money.

He made threats, “not just in private conversations […] According to a witness statement cited by FCA lawyers, he was clearly at the hearing of employees on his own floor of the building, many with mortgages and some with families to support. The court heard he also threatened legal action against the regulator.

In his opening statement, Odey is expected to say that FCA officials have “hostile hostility” towards him; These emails included one in which he described himself as presiding over “a culture where it is normal to be perverted” in one of the emails between the regulator’s staff.

It claims that the regulator had already decided on the outcome of the investigation, which began in November 2021 and concluded in December 2022.

He called the process unfair and insisted the steps he took were necessary for the fund’s survival rather than self-preservation.

Odey claims that he has the right to dismiss the board members of the company conducting the investigation against him, believing that they failed to conduct the process fairly. He’ll say he fired them to save the company from going bankrupt.

His lawyers are expected to explain the case in more detail later Tuesday.