The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has fined Odey Asset Management (OAM) founder, Crispin Odey, £1.8m and banned him from the UK financial services industry for “a lack of integrity”.

It considered that Odey had deliberately tried to frustrate OAM’s disciplinary processes into his conduct to protect his own interests.

The FCA said that Odey had shown “reckless disregard” for OAM’s governance, which caused the firm to breach certain regulatory requirements.

Additionally, it believed that Odey’s behaviour towards OAM and the FCA “lacked candour”, and his conduct demonstrated that he was not a fit and proper person to perform any function related to regulated activities.

Oday has referred his Decision Notice to the Upper Tribunal, where both he and the FCA will present their cases.

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.

“A culture of silence in which allegations of misconduct are not dealt with effectively can put consumers and markets at risk,” stated FCA joint executive director of enforcement and market oversight, Therese Chambers.

“Mr Odey repeatedly sought to evade and obstruct efforts to hold him to account. His lack of integrity means he deserves to be banned from the industry.”

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