Manhattan investors are taking one of Wall Street's powerhouse firms to court, claiming they were kept in the dark about a very controversial connection. On Monday, a group of Manhattan-based shareholders filed a proposed class action in federal court, accusing Apollo Global Management and its co-founders, Leon Black and Marc Rowan, of concealing business ties to Jeffrey Epstein. The complaint, led by investor Solomon Feldman, argues that Apollo's public disclosures misrepresented the firm's exposure to Epstein and left shareholders uninformed. Plaintiffs say that alleged concealment translated into heavy losses for Apollo stockholders.
According to Reuters, the complaint, filed in the Southern District of New York, claims Apollo's 2021 and 2022 regulatory filings "falsely denied" ever doing business with Epstein. It also points to a roughly 15% slide in Apollo's share price over three weeks in February, a drop that plaintiffs say wiped out about $12 billion in market value. The suit seeks class status for shareholders who bought Apollo shares during the period covered by the complaint and names Apollo, Black, and Rowan as defendants. The investors allege that the defendants defrauded them for nearly five years.
The lawsuit is the latest fallout from the Justice Department's January release of Epstein-related documents. Those materials have revealed communications between Epstein and Apollo executives in the mid-2010s, including exchanges about tax arrangements and a tax-receivable agreement, and have kicked off a new round of investor scrutiny. The Financial Times reported that some emails show Apollo executives forwarding calculations and discussing strategy with Epstein. Those disclosures have fueled a wave of investor alerts and law-firm inquiries.
Apollo has pushed back hard. In a Feb. 18 letter to clients, the firm said "there's nothing new" in the freshly released documents and repeated its position that "neither Marc Rowan nor anyone else at Apollo (excluding Leon Black) had either a business or personal relationship with Jeffrey Epstein," while acknowledging that Black retained Epstein for personal tax work, according to Apollo. The company pointed back to its 2020 independent review as the foundation for its past disclosures.
That review, commissioned by Apollo in 2020 and released publicly in 2021 by Dechert LLP, found that Black paid Epstein roughly $158 million for tax and estate-planning advice, a number that has hovered over the firm ever since and pushed Apollo to make governance changes. The Dechert findings have been repeatedly cited in reporting and regulatory filings, including coverage by Forbes.
Legal Claims And Regulatory Risk
The new complaint accuses Apollo and its co-founders of making false statements that misled investors, a set of allegations that could expose the firm to civil liability and invite interest from the SEC if proven, as detailed by Reuters. Major investor groups are already pressing for answers. The American Federation of Teachers has formally asked the SEC to investigate Apollo's past disclosures, according to Business Insider.
DOJ Trove Reopened Scrutiny
The Justice Department's Jan. 30 release of Epstein materials, a multiday rollout that included millions of pages, videos, and images, has been mined by journalists and lawyers for new leads, per CBS News. Those files are the immediate reason that reporters and plaintiffs say new details about communications, timelines, and financial questions have come to light.
Law firms have been quick to move. Investor-rights outfits including Pomerantz and Rosen have issued investor alerts and are investigating potential claims. The case is set to play out in Manhattan federal court, with institutional investors watching closely for any move to consolidate related actions and for possible regulatory follow-up.
