The High Court has ordered that there should be a joint trial on liability in two sets of proceedings involving the financier, Crispin Odey.
The first comprises five personal injury claims commenced in the Kings Bench Division in 2023 by women alleging sexual assaults by Mr Odey.
The second is a libel claim brought by Mr Odey in 2024 in the Media and Communications court over two articles published in the Financial Times (FT) in the summer of 2023. These reported allegations of sexual assault and sexual harassment against Mr Odey by a larger number of women, including four of the five personal injury claimants. Mr Odey claims special damages of £79m in the libel proceedings. The FT has pleaded defences of truth and public interest reporting. The cases of the five personal injury claimants are pleaded as part of the FT’s truth defence.
Applications were made by the FT for a split trial of liability and quantum, and by the five personal injury claimants for a stay of their proceedings to let the libel proceedings go first. These were opposed by Mr Odey. While the five women claimants indicated a willingness to be bound by the findings of fact as to their allegations made in by the judge in the libel trial (going first), Mr Odey did not agree to be bound in this way.
In a speaking judgment given on 25 July 2025 Heather Williams J identified a need to avoid the risk of inconsistent findings in the two cases, and to avoid the risk of the evidence relating to the five women’s cases having to be given twice. She ruled that the best means of avoiding these risks would be a joint trial on liability in the two sets of proceedings.
The joint trial will determine limitation defences pleaded by Mr Odey in four of the five personal injury cases. In the libel claim it will determine the two defences pleaded by the FT and the issues of causation of damage and quantum of general damages (but not quantum of special damages).
It is anticipated that the joint trial will take place in June-July 2026.
Gavin Millar KC acts for the FT instructed by RPC.