Upper Tribunal upholds Odey ban but reduces fine

The Upper Tribunal has upheld the Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) decision to ban Odey Asset Management (OAM) founder, Crispin Odey, from the financial services industry but reduced his fine by £300,000.

In March 2025, the FCA chose to fine Odey £1.83m and ban him from the industry for “a lack of integrity”.

The Upper Tribunal rejected Odey's appeal and upheld the ban after also concluding that he had acted with a lack of integrity, but reduced the fine to £1.53m.

Odey was the founder and majority owner of OAM, which went into voluntary liquidation in November 2024.

The regulator’s case consisted of five allegations, with the Upper Tribunal upholding them all and agreeing that they each demonstrated a lack of integrity from Odey.

In February 2021, after an internal investigation by OAM, Odey received a final written warning from OAM’s executive committee in relation to “inappropriate behaviour”.

Later that year in November, OAM scheduled a disciplinary hearing to consider whether Odey had breached this final warning, but Odey subsequently used his majority shareholding in OAM to remove the existing executive committee members and appoint himself as the committee’s sole member.

He then decided that the hearing into his conduct would be postponed indefinitely as he was unable to conduct it with impartiality.

In January 2022, Odey appointed new members to the executive committee and resigned from the committee, but again removed the executive committee members and appointed himself the sole member in March 2022 following a disagreement as to how to proceed with the hearing.

He retained this position until he appointed two new executive committee members in July 2022, with his hearing finally taking place in November 2022.

Alongside the allegations arising from his dismissal of the executive committees, the Upper Tribunal upheld the allegations that Odey’s dealings with OAM, its clients, its investors and the FCA lacked candour.

During the trial, the Upper Tribunal found Odey demonstrated a lack of insight into why his conduct lacked integrity and that his evidence lacked credibility.

“Mr Odey clearly thought he could act with impunity,” commented FCA executive director of enforcement and market oversight, Therese Chambers.

“He twice sacked those tasked with protecting female employees from his inappropriate behaviour when they tried to hold him to account. He felt the rules shouldn’t apply to him and acted to save his own skin.

“During the hearing he reinvented history, painted himself as a victim and displayed no contrition.

“That arrogant entitlement and the resulting complete disregard for proper governance means Mr Odey is unfit to work in financial services.”

---