Crispin Odey has lost his bid to overturn a lifetime ban from working in the City following sexual misconduct allegations against him.

The disgraced hedge fund tycoon took legal action after the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) barred him from the UK finance industry and fined him more than £1.8million in March last year for a ‘lack of integrity’.

The decision was taken over his handling of disciplinary processes regarding his alleged sexual misconduct at his firm Odey Asset Management (OAM).

After a hearing earlier this year, the Upper Tribunal dismissed his challenge on Monday, capping a dramatic fall from grace for the financier, 67.

The FCA told the tribunal in London that a 2021 report published by law firm Simmons & Simmons found at least 46 historical allegations of inappropriate conduct by Odey towards female employees at OAM between 2003 and 2020.

He was later alleged to have breached the terms of a final written warning by sexually harassing a temporary receptionist at the end of 2021.

The FCA claimed Odey then twice dismissed members of OAM’s executive committee, which was investigating the alleged breach, leaving himself as its sole member and postponing the disciplinary process ‘indefinitely’.

Its barristers told the hearing that this ‘amounted to an abrogation of Odey’s duty to act with integrity’ and ‘shows that he is not fit and proper’.

Lawyers for Odey said the former hedge fund manager removed the executive committee members because he believed he was facing an unfair process, which would result in his removal from the company.

Odey also denied the allegations, telling the tribunal in evidence that he 'could not then, and cannot now, see what other option I had' but to dismiss them.

In Monday's ruling, the tribunal judges said they were ‘satisfied that Mr Odey lacked integrity in each of the ways that the authority alleges’.

They said: ‘We are satisfied that Mr Odey’s asserted beliefs or concerns were not the primary nor contemporaneous motives for his actions in removing the ExCos.

‘Many of the beliefs he did not even hold at the time, and those that he did were not reasonably held but reflected a warped set of values based on a strong sense of entitlement.’

They also reduced the fine issued to Odey by the FCA from £1.8million to £1.5million.

Therese Chambers, executive director of enforcement and market oversight at the FCA, said: ‘Mr Odey clearly thought he could act with impunity. He twice sacked those tasked with protecting female employees from his inappropriate behaviour when they tried to hold him to account. He felt the rules shouldn’t apply to him and acted to save his own skin.

‘During the hearing he reinvented history, painted himself as a victim and displayed no contrition. That arrogant entitlement and the resulting complete disregard for proper governance means Mr Odey is unfit to work in financial services.’