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The former chief executive of Crispin Odey’s hedge fund told the financial watchdog its founder was a “sex pest” and a “sociopath” with a “real problem” in his attitude to women, a court heard on Tuesday. 

The allegation that Odey was someone who “finds it hard to control himself” around women came on the opening day of a court hearing a legal challenge brought by the hedge fund founder against penalties imposed on him by the UK regulator.

Timothy Pearey, former chief executive of Odey Asset Management, said during an interview with the UK Financial Conduct Authority that while Odey was “fiercely intellectual” and was capable of “brutal honesty”, there were weaknesses to his character, the watchdog’s lawyers told the court on Tuesday. 

“I am afraid his other weakness, which I came to realise far too late, is that he is a sex pest. I think he’s got a real problem,” Pearey said, the FCA lawyer told the Upper Tribunal in London.

Pearey was co-chief executive at Odey Asset Management, the hedge fund founded by Odey, from 2015 until 2020 and sole chief until 2022.

The case will determine whether the FCA was right to ban Odey from working in the UK financial services sector and to fine him £1.8mn last year after he twice fired his executive committee to stop them holding a disciplinary hearing on sexual misconduct allegations.

The FCA has alleged that Odey “lacked integrity”, acted “recklessly” and breached several of its rules. Odey Asset Management (OAM) started to shut down in 2023 after allegations of sexual misconduct against him were reported by the FT and other media.

When the FCA asked Odey if he thought asking a receptionist to try on a dress he bought for his daughter in the office was the right way to act in a workplace, he replied that it was “very appropriate”, a lawyer for the regulator told the tribunal.

At this point in proceedings, Odey, who had been sitting in court on Tuesday wearing a blue suit and pink tie, nodded his affirmation.

Lawyers for the hedge fund founder have responded by accusing the FCA of having an “agenda” to make him a “totemic” case in its crackdown on non-financial misconduct in the City of London.

“This is not a trial of sexual allegations made against Mr Odey and it would be grossly unfair if it was to become one,” a lawyer for the hedge fund’s founder told the court. Odey did not have to be “a paragon of virtue” to work in finance, but had to have a well-functioning “ethical compass”, he added.

Odey’s lawyers said in opening arguments submitted to the court he was within his rights to fire the executive committee members, on the basis that they were incapable of disciplining him fairly because they were under too much pressure from the FCA to oust him. This would have caused irreparable damage to his company, they said.

His lawyer said emails and documents written by FCA officials showed a mixture of “pressure, prejudgment and prevarication” in the regulator’s approach to Odey.

Howard Cornwell, the FCA official who oversaw the supervision of OAM, told colleagues that non-financial misconduct was “quite widespread” among hedge funds and other alternative asset managers and was “one of the possible key risks” in the sector, according to an email cited in court by Odey’s lawyer.

Odey’s lawyer said: “This looks suspiciously like a non-financial misconduct agenda being to the forefront of Mr Cornwell’s mind.”

However, the regulator’s counsel said that the FCA was told by a partner at Simmons & Simmons, a law firm that conducted an investigation into Odey’s conduct towards female employees in 2020 and 2021, that he “had outdated and distasteful views of women, especially if they worked in reception”.

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Simmons & Simmons partner Darren Fox also told the FCA that Odey had admitted to inappropriate behaviour towards female members of staff and that employees had felt they could not raise their concerns due to Odey’s seniority, the court heard.

The watchdog also said Odey had initially denied that he had “rubbed” a female employee’s back but then had said he couldn’t remember “how many times” he had done so and that he did give “quite a lot of shoulder massages”. He denied that he had been “talking dirty” with female staff, according to the FCA’s lawyer.

Odey separately faces a trial in June that will combine personal injury claims brought by five women against him and a libel case he brought against the FT over its reporting of 19 women’s sexual misconduct allegations. Odey strenuously denies both sets of allegations.

The court case continues.