Legal: Class action accuses Apollo of hiding Epstein ties in SEC filings

A class action lawsuit accuses Apollo Global Management of hiding years of business dealings between its top leaders and Jeffrey Epstein. 

The suit, filed March 2 in the Southern District of New York, targets the alternative asset giant alongside CEO Marc Rowan and co-founder Leon Black. At its core, the case claims that what Apollo told investors and regulators — that the firm never did business with Epstein — was false. 

Those denials began during an October 2020 earnings call, when Apollo's Head of Investor Relations Gary M. Stein said the firm "never did any business with Jeffrey Epstein." Black echoed that message on the same call. Months later, Apollo released the results of an independent review by Dechert LLP, which found that the firm never retained Epstein for any services and that Epstein never invested in any Apollo-managed fund. 

Beginning in mid-2021, Apollo repeated those conclusions across multiple SEC filings, including its quarterly 10-Q reports and 2021 Annual Report on Form 10-K, each carrying Sarbanes-Oxley certifications signed by Rowan attesting to the accuracy of financial reporting and the disclosure of all fraud. 

That narrative came under pressure on February 1, when The Financial Times reported that newly released U.S. Department of Justice files painted a very different picture. According to the suit, those files showed that Epstein had requested and received internal Apollo financial documents and had been in direct contact with some of the firm's most senior decision-makers on sensitive business matters. 

The lawsuit points to a series of alleged interactions. In March 2016, Rowan reportedly forwarded a detailed internal tax receivable agreement calculation to Epstein. In other correspondence, Epstein described a meeting that appeared to involve Rowan: "Mark [sic] was here this morning; we talked Athene, Montauk, Rothschild. Planes boats etc." 

Epstein was also said to have been involved in discussions about a potential tax "inversion" deal that would have moved Apollo's domicile overseas to cut its tax bill, and to have hosted a meeting at his Manhattan townhouse between Apollo executives and senior figures at Swiss private bank Edmond de Rothschild. 

In 2015, Apollo partner Sanjay Patel reportedly emailed Epstein, saying, "I run Apollo's business in Europe. Marc Rowan asked me to catch up with you regarding the Rothschild conversations." The lawsuit also claims Apollo's former chief legal officer, John Suydam, called or met Epstein on multiple occasions, and that Black's family office forwarded Epstein an internal share offering document for Athene Holding, Apollo's life insurance affiliate. As Apollo prepared to take Athene public, Epstein reportedly proposed a plan he said could save the firm's co-founders up to $300 million in tax, for a 25 percent success fee. 

The market reaction was swift. After the initial Financial Times report, Apollo's stock fell $1.35 per share to close at $133.19 on February 2, then dropped an additional $6.34 to close at $126.85 the following day. A second article on February 17 revealed that the American Federation of Teachers and the American Association of University Professors had urged the SEC to investigate, saying Apollo's communications to investors "give an inaccurate and incomplete picture of the firm and its partners' connections to Epstein." Shares dropped another $6.81 over the following two trading days. A CNN report on February 21 pushed the stock down a further 5 percent, closing at $113.73 on February 23. 

The suit asserts two counts under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934: one for securities fraud and another for control person liability against Rowan and Black. 

No determination has been made on the merits. The case remains in its earliest stage, with the plaintiff seeking damages and a jury trial. 

For wealth and investment professionals, this case is a sharp reminder of how alleged disclosure failures and reliance on internal investigations can create lasting regulatory and reputational exposure, particularly when new information surfaces through channels outside a firm's control.