The Upper Tribunal has dismissed Crispin Odey's challenge to the decision by the FCA to ban him from the financial services industry, and has imposed a financial penalty of £1.53 million (reduced from the £1.83 million penalty proposed by the FCA).

Background: Governance process failures as integrity breaches

The FCA's action stemmed from underlying allegations that Mr Odey had engaged in inappropriate behaviour and sexual misconduct against female employees. However, the case against him was that he lacked integrity due to his disregard for corporate governance processes aimed at investigating and imposing disciplinary sanctions in respect of that alleged misconduct.  

Mr Odey twice removed separate Executive Committees of Odey Asset Management LLP ("OAM") which were due to hear allegations regarding his conduct, appointing himself as the sole member of the Executive Committee in the interim periods. Mr Odey submitted that he had good reasons justifying the removal of the Executive Committees, but the Upper Tribunal disagreed and found that "he was motivated by his own self-interest and self-preservation so as to avoid accountability". The FCA also submitted that Mr Odey's actions risked embedding a culture at OAM of inappropriate behaviour being ineffectively challenged. The Upper Tribunal also agreed with this.

For further detail on the background to the case and the matters under consideration by the Upper Tribunal, please see our March 2026 blog post.

The FCA's future enforcement approach to non-financial misconduct

The Upper Tribunal's decision validates the FCA's decision to pursue enforcement action against Mr Odey on the particular facts of this case (and to resist Mr Odey's attempts to argue that the action was improperly motivated by an "animus" against him). It confirms that the FCA has considerable latitude when deciding how to characterise enforcement action based on alleged non-financial misconduct.

For example, the decision illustrates the potential breadth of the FCA's ability to take action against senior individuals by rejecting Mr Odey's arguments that the FCA ought to have distinguished between the various roles held by him when deciding whether to take disciplinary action against him. He argued that he was not susceptible to disciplinary action for breaches of the Code of Conduct section of the FCA's Handbook ("COCON") by virtue of the fact that the misconduct for which the action was directly referable to his role as a "controller", rather than an "employee" of OAM. The Tribunal did not accept these arguments, finding that "attempt[s] to apportion or separate each of Mr Odey's acts, omissions and statements…between his roles at OAM is not an analysis that finds any support in [the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000] or COCON and is factually impossible in any event". Its ruling on this point suggests that the FCA need not identify the specific capacity in which senior individuals are acting when engaging in misconduct, but rather may take a holistic view when deciding whether or how to proceed with disciplinary action.

The decision has arrived shortly after the FCA's updated non-financial misconduct rules entered into force on 1 September 2026, which bring non-bank financial services firms within the ambit of rules relating to non-financial misconduct which have previously only applied to banks. For further detail on the updated rules and the FCA's guidance, please see our July 2025 briefing and December 2025 briefing.

It is not expected that the decision will precipitate an increase in the frequency with which the FCA pursues non-financial misconduct enforcement cases against individuals. Its updated rules on non-financial misconduct may provide it with a more direct route to pursue individuals whose conduct it finds to be particularly egregious. However, the FCA's public statements following the Upper Tribunal's decision, although strongly critical of Mr Odey, do not contain commitments to pursuing similar action against others in future.

This is consistent with the indications it has given whilst refining its rules and guidance that "The primary responsibility for preventing [non-financial misconduct], and dealing with it when it occurs, rests with firms themselves."^[1] Accordingly, the FCA's focus may prove to be as much on whether firms are prepared and able to hold individuals to account through robust governance and disciplinary processes as on making examples of the individuals concerned.

Reduction to the financial penalty imposed by the FCA

As it has in a number of recent cases concerning individuals, the Upper Tribunal reduced the penalty imposed on Mr Odey. In this instance, it did so on the basis that it was not appropriate to increase Mr Odey's penalty by 20 per cent or at all for aggravating factors at step three of the five stage process set out in chapter 6.5A of the Decision Procedure and Penalties Manual ("DEPP") of the FCA's Handbook as the FCA had done. Whilst the Upper Tribunal did not accept all the mitigating factors submitted by Mr Odey, it accepted that there had been "a degree of cooperation" and remediation by Mr Odey that offset the relevant aggravating factors. The Upper Tribunal also noted the need to avoid the double counting of factors that increase the seriousness of the breach (at step two) and aggravating factors (at step three). Mr Odey's arguments about assessments of the seriousness of the breach (step two) and the adjustment to be applied for deterrence (step four) were rejected.

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^{[1] See PS25/23 at 2.28 - PS25/23: Tackling non‑financial misconduct in financial services}