Hedge fund founder Odey gives evidence in fight against financial industry ban

By Sam Tobin

LONDON, March 24 (Reuters) – Hedge fund manager Crispin Odey denied he had been unable to “control himself” around female employees as he gave evidence on Tuesday in an effort to overturn the Financial Conduct Authority’s plan to impose an industry ban on him.

Odey, who founded Odey Asset Management in 1991, shot to prominence during the 2008 financial crisis after making a fortune short-selling bank shares. He later became a leading backer of Brexit and a donor to the Conservative Party.

Financial watchdog the FCA said last year it would fine and ban Odey for a lack of integrity in relation to how his now-defunct firm investigated allegations of sexual harassment.

Odey is appealing against the ban, which would prevent him from working in the British financial services industry.

WATCHDOG ALLEGES ODEY FRUSTRATED DISCIPLINARY PROCEDURES

The FCA says Odey deliberately frustrated his fund’s disciplinary process by twice dismissing the members of its executive committee, in 2021 and 2022. Odey, however, says he was trying to protect OAM, which “faced an existential crisis”.

Giving evidence at London’s Upper Tribunal, Odey said he was “deeply embarrassed” about an incident in which he groped a staff member and accepted in his witness statement having been “something of a dinosaur”, but generally defended his conduct.

He also said he never knowingly made women uncomfortable, and had developed insight into his behaviour after a disciplinary hearing, realising “it was not appropriate that I should be trying to chat up” young staff members.

FCA APPEAL FIRST OF ODEY’S TWO CASES

Odey was questioned about several allegations made by women working at OAM, including an incident in 2005 when Odey gave a woman a shoulder massage and then touched her breasts.

The 67-year-old, who blames the incident on a sedative he was given for a dental procedure earlier that day, later told the FCA that he subsequently distanced himself from the woman.

The FCA’s lawyer Claire Sibson suggested this was because “you found it hard to control yourself”. Odey replied: “No, this was 2005, we are now (in) 2026.”

He added that he apologised to the woman the following day and she continued to work at OAM for nearly another decade.

His appearance in the witness box is the first of two this year, ahead of the joint trial starting in June of Odey’s libel lawsuit against the Financial Times and personal injury lawsuits against Odey by five women, whose lawyer sat in court on Tuesday.

The former hedge fund manager was charged in 2020 with sexually assaulting a woman in 1998 and was acquitted in 2021.

(Reporting by Sam Tobin; editing by Barbara Lewis)