Crispin Odey, the billionaire financier fighting several lawsuits relating to allegations of sexual misconduct, will bring a case against the financial services regulator over his exile from the City.
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) fined Odey £1.8 million and banned him from the financial services industry last year.
It found that he had shown a “lack of integrity” by trying to thwart an investigation by his own hedge fund into sexual harassment allegations, which he denies.
Odey had already launched a £79m defamation claim against the Financial Times, which first published claims about his behavior towards junior female staff. The fund, Odey Asset Management, closed in the wake of the allegations.
He also faces civil personal injury lawsuits brought by five women, including one who accused him of rape, which he also denies.
Those cases are scheduled to be heard together in joint proceedings in June.
Odey will begin a separate legal case against the FCA on Tuesday over disciplinary action it took in response to his alleged obstruction of an internal investigation into his behavior that began in September 2020.
According to the regulator’s initial filing, Odey exercised his power as the fund’s majority shareholder to circumvent governance structures and protect his own position in violation of City rules.
The FCA says he is unfit to run a financial services firm as he showed a “reckless disregard” for compliance which caused the firm to breach its regulatory obligations.
Odey’s case against the FCA previously led to the revelation that an internal report into his conduct uncovered at least 46 historical allegations of inappropriate conduct towards female employees.
In his opening submission, Odey will say that FCA officials had a “hostile animus” towards him, referring to emails between staff at the regulator, one of which referred to him as president of a “culture where it is okay to be a pervert”.
It claims that the regulator prejudged the outcome of its investigation, which began in November 2021 and concluded in December 2022.
The process was unfair, he will say, insisting that the actions he took were necessary for the fund’s survival rather than aimed at self-preservation.
Odey claims that he had the right to fire the members of the company’s executive committee who were leading the investigation against him, believing that they were not capable of carrying out the process fairly. He will say he fired them to save the company from collapse.
