The £1.53 million misconduct lesson from Odey part 1: can your investigation process withstand pressure from the founder?

The Odey case gives regulated firms a simple test: can your misconduct process still function when the person under investigation has the power to remove, intimidate or overrule the people running it?

If the answer depends on that senior person choosing to cooperate, we do not think you have an independent process.

On 14 September 2026, the Upper Tribunal upheld the FCA’s decision to ban Crispin Odey from financial services after finding that he lacked integrity. It upheld all five of the FCA’s allegations against him and imposed a £1.53 million fine, reduced from the £1.83 million proposed by the FCA.

The findings matter well beyond one individual or firm. They show what happens when misconduct allegations, seniority and weak investigation governance collide.

A brief overview of the Crispin Odey case

Crispin Odey was a Hedge Fund Manager and Founder of Odey Asset Management who faced internal complaints about inappropriate behaviour towards female employees. The firm was governed via an executive committee, but its internal structure was heavily compromised and dominated by Odey. 

 The firm began a disciplinary process, but the FCA later found that Odey used his position to interfere with that process. He threatened and bullied senior colleagues and twice removed the executive committee that was responsible for holding him accountable, which brought the investigation to a halt.

How the allegations came to light

The process began internally in 2020. On 27 August 2020, a former female employee raised a sexual harassment complaint against Odey through solicitors. A second complaint followed on 17 September 2020, when a current female employee submitted a formal grievance after being interviewed as part of the first complaint. Odey Asset Management then commissioned an investigation, ultimately conducted by Simmons & Simmons, which widened its enquiries and identified allegations involving other female employees. 

There was another important trigger in October 2021. A recruitment agency told Odey Asset Management that it would no longer provide temporary staff because of information supplied by a temporary receptionist who had worked there that summer. That prompted the investigation into whether Odey had breached his existing final written warning, leading to the disciplinary process that he later interfered with.

The Financial Times reporting came later, in June 2023, and brought the allegations much more fully into public view, including further allegations. By then, however, the firm had already been dealing with complaints and disciplinary investigations for several years.

The FCA investigation

Odey resigned in 2023, after the allegations were brought to light by the medi and Odey Asset Management ceased trading months later.

The FCA treated that conduct as an integrity issue, not just an internal HR matter. In March 2025 the FCA banned Odey from working in financial services. In September 2026, the Upper Tribunal agreed with the FCA, upheld all five allegations against Odey, which included: that he obstructed the disciplinary process, undermined the firm’s governance, contributed to a culture where his behaviour could go unchallenged, lacked candour in his dealings with others, and made a false claim to the FCA about delaying the proceedings. Taken together, the tribunal found that this conduct showed a lack of integrity. 

The upper tribunal confirmed that he should be banned from working in financial services. It reduced his fine from £1.83 million to £1.53 million, because it disagreed with one part of the FCA’s penalty calculation. Specifically, the tribunal decided that the uplift for aggravating factors should not have been applied. It did not overturn any of the five allegations or change its finding that Odey lacked integrity. (FCA)

This case shows what can happen when the person being investigated has enough authority to disrupt the process itself.

The problem was bigger than the original allegations

Odey had faced an internal disciplinary process at Odey Asset Management concerning a breach of a final written warning relating to repeated inappropriate behaviour towards female employees.

According to the FCA, his response included bullying and threatening executive directors. He twice dismissed the executive committee responsible for holding him accountable, bringing the disciplinary process to a halt. The Upper Tribunal upheld the FCA’s five allegations, including findings relating to a lack of candour and threatening behaviour towards FCA staff. It also found that Odey showed no contrition and lacked insight into why his conduct demonstrated a lack of integrity.

For us, this is the central governance lesson.

A misconduct process cannot depend on the permission of the person it may need to investigate.

We work with organisations on whistleblowing and workplace investigations, and senior-person cases expose weaknesses that ordinary complaints may never reveal. A process can work perfectly well when an allegation concerns a middle manager. That tells you little about what will happen when a complaint names the founder, chief executive or another person with authority over HR, Compliance or Legal.

That is the scenario you should design for.

Ask who can actually investigate your CEO

Take a fairly common structure.

An employee reports harassment through an internal channel. Compliance receives the disclosure. HR would usually investigate it. The HR director reports to the chief executive.

Now assume the allegation concerns the chief executive.

Who appoints the investigator? Who controls access to documents? Who can approve external legal support? Who receives the investigator’s findings? Who can stop or narrow the investigation? What happens if the chief executive tries to remove someone involved?

You need clear answers before a complaint arrives.

We have written before about why whistleblowing becomes a governance issue when concerns involve seniority and influence. Conflicts of interest need to be designed out of the process rather than managed informally once a difficult case appears.

The Odey findings make that principle concrete.

To steer your own internal process away from such risks, I’d recommended reading my guide on ‘Building a misconduct reporting process: what should happen after a complaint’.

Independence has to survive interference

Investigator independence is often discussed as a question of professional objectivity. We think firms need to look further.

The investigator also needs practical independence.

They need access to evidence without seeking permission from the subject of the complaint. Their appointment should be protected from interference. Escalation routes need to bypass implicated executives. Where necessary, the board or an appropriate committee should be able to commission and oversee an external investigation directly.

Your misconduct process should also create a record of decisions, access and changes in case ownership.

That record matters when senior people become involved because interference may take relatively ordinary forms. An investigator loses access to an inbox. A meeting is cancelled. Someone is removed from the case. Terms of reference are rewritten. An allegation is reclassified before reaching the board.

Viewed separately, each action may have an explanation. Viewed through a complete investigation record, the pattern can look very different.

Our whistleblowing platform is designed around that need for controlled reporting, case handling and follow-up. Technology cannot make difficult governance decisions for you, but it can give your employees a safer way to speak up, and the people responsible for those decisions a defensible record of what happened.

The FCA rules make the timing significant

From 1 September 2026, the FCA extended its conduct rules for non-banks to cover bullying, harassment and violence against colleagues where there is a sufficient work-related connection. The FCA says the change affects around 37,000 additional regulated firms. Its accompanying guidance also addresses how non-financial misconduct can be considered within fitness and propriety assessments.

The FCA says 95% of respondents to its consultation supported the additional guidance. There is an important legal distinction here.

The Upper Tribunal of Crispin Odey did not retrospectively apply the FCA’s new non-financial misconduct rule to Odey.

Its decision concerned integrity, governance, obstruction and other conduct under the regulatory framework applicable at the relevant time. Firms should avoid describing the judgment as an enforcement action under the new September 2026 rules.

The regulatory direction is therefore clear. Serious workplace behaviour can have consequences beyond HR, and firms need processes capable of identifying and dealing with it properly.

The Odey judgment shows the related governance risk when the person accused has enough authority to interfere with that response.

I wrote previously about how to build a misconduct reporting process, and what should happen after a complaint.

Reporting channels need an escalation route beyond management and leadership within the organisation

An anonymous reporting channel helps employees raise concerns where ordinary management routes feel unsafe. It does not solve the problem if every report ultimately lands with somebody who answers to the person named in it.

We think firms should map this before the next complaint.

A disclosure involving the CEO might go directly to the chair. A concern about the chair may require another designated non-executive director or external recipient. Allegations involving several senior leaders may justify external triage and investigation from the outset.

The correct structure will depend on your organisation. The requirement is simpler: there must always be somewhere safe for the complaint to go.

Retaliation needs the same attention. Employees reporting someone powerful may worry about consequences that are difficult to identify as formal retaliation, such as exclusion from meetings, sudden performance concerns or loss of opportunities. We cover some of these risks in our guidance on supporting whistleblowers after they report.

Your safeguards need to continue while the investigation is running.

Test your process against the hardest case

The question we would put to every regulated firm is straightforward.

Imagine a credible complaint arrives tomorrow concerning your founder, CEO or most influential director.

Will your senior people walk the walk and set in place a follow-through process with robust governance? Or will they cave to the whims of a powerful and corrupt CEO?

Can your employee report it without going through the person involved? Can somebody independently commission the investigation? Can investigators obtain records without the subject controlling access? Can the investigation continue if the subject objects? Can somebody protect the complainant and witnesses? Does your board have enough visibility to intervene?

Our experience is that these questions tell you far more about the strength of a misconduct process than another review of the wording in your employee handbook.

The £1.53 million figure will attract attention. The more useful lesson from the Odey case is what happened inside the accountability system. Your process has to work precisely when the person being investigated would prefer that it did not.