The Crispin Odey investigation

This is an audio transcript of the FT News Briefing podcast episode: ‘The Crispin Odey investigation’

Marc Filippino
Good morning from the Financial Times. Today is Tuesday, June 13th, and this is your FT News Briefing.

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More than a dozen women told the Financial Times they were sexually assaulted and harassed by the founder of one of London’s best known hedge fund companies.

Madison Marriage
So one of the women said she was told in her first week, you know, here are the loos, here’s where you make a cup of tea. And by the way, don’t get in the lift with Crispin Odey.

Marc Filippino
The FT’s Madison Marriage will tell us more about the investigation and the fallout. Also, a former FT Rome correspondent shares his thoughts on Italy’s former prime minister, the late Silvio Berlusconi. And France wants a green tax on global shipping. I’m Marc Filippino, and here’s the news you need to start your day.

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France is trying to drum up support for a global greenhouse gas emissions tax for the shipping industry. French President Emmanuel Macron is hosting a climate finance summit this month, and a shipping tax would be a significant achievement for him. Shipping still largely relies on fossil fuels. Critics say the industry has been slow to decarbonise because of a lack of regulation. The EU already plans to introduce its own shipping emissions tax on ship owners travelling through European waters. The global tax France is lobbying for would be used to finance the fight against climate change around the world.

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A high profile British financier is being ousted from his company after an FT investigation into allegations of sexual misconduct. Thirteen women told the FT that Crispin Odey sexually assaulted or harassed them over a 25-year period. Odey denies the allegations. The FT’s Madison Marriage led the investigation and joins me now. Hi, Madison.

Madison Marriage
Hi there.

Marc Filippino
So for those who aren’t familiar with Crispin Odey, can you tell us about him and how prominent a figure he is in British financial circles?

Madison Marriage
Yes. So Crispin Odey is a, he’s best known for being a kind of larger-than- life figure. He has cultivated excellent relationships with lots of national newspapers. He’s been frequently quoted over the last two decades on kind of market movements, stock price changes. But he’s also very well known for his strong political ties. So he’s been a regular donor to the Conservative party. He’s also funded other political causes, including pro-Brexit groups and the Ukip anti-immigration party.

Marc Filippino
Now, as you were doing this investigation, you talked to, as I said, 13 women. What did they tell you about Odey’s behaviour at his firm, Odey Asset Management? What did he do?

Madison Marriage
So the 13 women, eight of them alleged that he had sexually assaulted them, and the remainder said that they had been sexually harassed. So the sexual harassment largely came in the office and was frequently aimed at the receptionists. The assault allegations obviously incredibly serious. The most recent sexual assault allegation concerned his behaviour following a dinner party at his Gloucestershire mansion in December 2021.

Marc Filippino
OK, we’re gonna leave out some of the explicit details that you include in your story. If listeners want to read that, we’ve got a link to the story in the show notes. We should mention that Odey’s law firm said he strenuously disputed these allegations and other allegations in your reporting. But Madison, even before your investigation, other allegations had already been made against Odey. What’s different about your reporting here?

Madison Marriage
I’m really pleased you’ve asked me that because it’s been a strange part of our reporting journey to realise how many allegations have already been made about Odey and yet see how little impact they’ve had. Prior to our report, eight women had already come forward either to the press or to the police with allegations. He successfully defended himself in court in early 2021. With our reporting, what makes us different is that we’ve spoken to nine women who had never spoken to the press before. They’re all unbelievably brave, and I’m so in awe of them because I think it’s really scary to come forward to a journalist and speak about these incredibly traumatic private experiences when you think you’re not gonna be taken seriously. And time and again, the kind of public and corporate response to these allegations had been to not take these people seriously.

Marc Filippino
I want to talk about that for a second. Why do you think despite the fact that Odey had never been held accountable for these allegations, why do you think these new women came out and spoke to you about their experiences?

Madison Marriage
I think one of the tipping points for some of our sources in speaking to us was the anger they felt over the judge’s comments when he delivered his verdict. So that’s the court case that I referenced that happened in early 2021 where Odey was successful. And in the judge’s comments, he told the financier he could leave the courtroom with his good character intact and congratulated him on reaching his sixties without a stain on your character. He said that the complainant displayed a vivid imagination and an apparent desire for publicity. He found Odey’s account credible but the complainant’s riddled with troubling inconsistencies. These are pretty damning words. And, you know, women’s rights groups came out afterwards and said that they were really troubling comments for a judge to make because they could deter future complainants from coming forward. And that is exactly what’s happened. So some of our sources said that part of the reason they’ve never gone to the police is because of what that judge said that day. They found it really upsetting to see her kind of character shredded on the stand.

Marc Filippino
So you’ve already talked about one of the reasons why Odey was able to evade consequences for these allegations for so long. You know, the judge, obviously a huge player in that, what were some of the other reasons? How come he was able to avoid accountability for so long?

Madison Marriage
So I think the really shocking thing for me in doing the reporting is that effectively his behaviour was a kind of open secret, almost a joke internally at his firm. So we kind of devoted a section of our article to some of the advice that was given to new female starters at the firm. So it was known that he was problematic with women, and that was well known enough that you had senior partners at the firm telling young female employees, you know, don’t go to lunch with him or don’t agree to any shopping trips. So I think that’s a kind of complicity within the firm. Staff at the firm wanted to protect their wallets over protecting their female colleagues. You know, you don’t stand up to the guy necessarily who’s guaranteeing your pay cheque at the end of the month.

Marc Filippino
So, Madison, your reporting has clearly had an impact. I mean, every time I go into FT.com I see there’s another Crispin Odey fallout story. What exactly have we been seeing?

Madison Marriage
So the fallout has been almost immediate, which has been so reassuring, especially for our sources. The biggest changes that happened last week was that a number of big financial institutions said that they were going to cut ties with Odey Asset Management. So that included Morgan Stanley, Exane, the French brokerage, and Goldman Sachs. A number of groups said that they were going to review their ties with the firm, including JPMorgan. All of this raises questions over whether the firm can continue to operate at all. The other changes that happened over the weekend was that on Saturday, the partners of the firm confirmed that they had effectively ejected Odey, Crispin Odey himself, from the business that he founded. It is one of Britain’s oldest hedge fund firms, and that’s a really big seismic moment to say he’s now got nothing to do with us anymore.

Marc Filippino
Madison Marriage is the FT’s special investigations editor. Thank you so much for your time, Madison.

Madison Marriage
Thank you for having me.

Marc Filippino
A law firm representing Odey Asset Management declined to comment in detail on the allegations citing confidentiality. It says Odey Asset Management has anti-harassment policies and “has at all times complied with all of its legal and regulatory obligations”.

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Before there was Donald Trump, there was Silvio Berlusconi. The billionaire businessman was Italy’s longest serving prime minister since the end of world war two. Berlusconi used his wealth and influence over the media to wield power. He also faced criminal investigations and allegations of wrongdoing. Berlusconi died yesterday at the age of 86, leaving behind a complicated legacy. The FT’s Tony Barber was a correspondent in Italy towards the end of the Berlusconi years.

Tony Barber
He broke a certain type of pattern of Italian politics dating from the end of the second world war. Up to that point, prime ministers had not been larger-than-life personalities. They tended to operate very much as party machine politicians. He changed all that. He introduced a style of politics in which his own personality was the main issue that everyone talked about, and he dominated the coalitions that he led. I mean, for a while he was Italy’s richest individual, and he used that wealth and business power to put pressure on democratic and judicial institutions so that they would bend to his will and serve his private interests. And he was relentless in his assaults on the judiciary. He claimed they were all communist conspirators, it was all a way of protecting his own and advancing his own business interests.

Marc Filippino
That’s the FT’s European comment editor and former Rome correspondent Tony Barber.

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Before we go, we want to make a quick correction. Yesterday, we referred to Donald Trump, Nicola Sturgeon and Boris Johnson as former heads of state. Now, only a third of that is correct. The president is the head of state and head of government in the US. We should have said heads of government only for Scotland and the UK, where the monarch is the head of state. We apologise for the error.

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You can read more on all of these stories at FT.com. This has been your daily FT News Briefing. Make sure you check back tomorrow for the latest business news.

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