The former hedge fund manager and owner of Odey Asset Management LLP, Crispin Odey, has discontinued his libel claim against the FT three months before trial.
The claim concerned two articles published by the FT in the Summer of 2023 which alleged that over several decades Mr Odey had repeatedly preyed upon women he came in to contact with, including receptionists and other women at his company, sexually assaulting them, sometimes using physical force or violence to do so, or sexually harassing them.
The articles reported complaints of sexual assaults and harassment by nineteen women.
Mr Odey claimed general damages and £79m in special damages, blaming the collapse of his company on the FT’s reporting.
The FT pleaded a defence of truth, relying on fifteen different cases of sexual abuse and/or harassment of women spanning five decades.
It also pleaded a defence of public interest reporting under s.4 of the Defamation Act 2013.
Five of the women who would have been witnesses in the FT’s truth defence are also pursing personal injury claims against Mr Odey based on their allegations.
In 2025 the High Court ordered that the libel and personal injury claims should be case managed together and, unusually, that the issues of liability in the six cases should be tried together in a five-week trial commencing in June 2026.
Notifying the FT of the discontinuance Mr Odey indicated his acceptance that, considering the FT’s extensive disclosure, its section 4 defence was likely to succeed.
He maintained that the allegations against him were untrue.
The five personal injury cases continue.
Gavin Millar KC represented the FT in the libel case, instructed by RPC.
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