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Crispin Odey has polled former staff in a bid to canvass support ahead of a high stakes libel claim against the Financial Times over its reporting of his conduct with women.
The financier took the unusual step last week of emailing former employees of his now defunct hedge fund Odey Asset Management, explaining that he believed the FT had “grossly misrepresented” him and the culture at his company.
In 2023, the FT published allegations of sexual misconduct against Odey from 20 women, including several former Odey Asset Management employees.
“I have been accused of being a sexual predator . . . I deny this in the strongest possible terms,” Odey wrote in the email, blind copied to former staff. “The picture of OAM painted by the Financial Times and Tortoise [a media outlet which published similar allegations] is not one I recognise.”
Odey then invited former staff to participate in a “single question poll” via a hyperlink to “confirm whether you agree with me”.
The poll, seen by the FT, asked respondents whether they felt “the depiction of the company and the person of Crispin Odey in the FT article did not reflect your experience of working at Odey”.
Respondents were offered only one answer: “Agree”. There was no option to disagree.
Odey noted in the email, that was sent to both men and women, that he was “taking this unusual step because I believe the court and indeed the record should have as full a picture as possible”.
Some individuals who received the email told the FT they did not want to click on the link because they feared it might track who had opened it, and were concerned about the consequences of Odey knowing they did not click “agree”.
Several women said receiving the email had made them feel uncomfortable. “I couldn’t believe it,” one said. Another former employee said they deleted it because “it looked pretty spammy”.
Odey did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Last year Odey brought a libel claim for £79mn against the FT. He is also fighting personal injury claims brought against him by five women over sexual misconduct allegations.
He is also challenging the UK regulator’s provisional decision to ban him from financial services for a “lack of integrity”. Odey has exercised his right to refer the matter to the Upper Tribunal, with a hearing expected next year.
In the email, Odey signed off with a word of reassurance. “I will understand if you do not want to involve yourself in this heated matter and there will be no hard feelings regardless of how you respond or if you do not respond at all. However I am asking for no more than that you to give [sic] a truthful account of your experience.”
2025-10-17 04:00:14
