Scandals

Apollo Global Management

Apollo Global Management is a $1.03 trillion alternative asset manager built on distressed-to-control investing, co-founded in 1990 by ex-Drexel bankers. It earns fees from pension funds, endowments, and sovereign wealth funds deploying capital across credit, private equity, and real assets. Its model works at scale—but its credibility fractures where leadership conduct contradicts its governance claims. The $158 million paid to Jeffrey Epstein did not disrupt operations, but it ended Leon Black’s tenure and exposed a rift between Apollo’s discipline-as-brand and its human risk.

Fitch Ratings

Tronox

Allianz

Elizabeth Holmes

Enron

Enron was an American energy, commodities and services company founded in 1985 through a merger of Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth. Before its December 2001 bankruptcy — the largest fraud-related bankruptcy in U.S. history — it claimed revenues of nearly $101 billion in 2000 and positioned itself as a major electricity, natural gas, communications, and pulp and paper company. Its reported financial condition was sustained by institutionalised, systematic, and creatively planned accounting fraud. Enron became synonymous with willful, institutional fraud and systemic corruption. It filed for bankruptcy in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, emerged in November 2004 under a court-approved reorganisation plan, and was renamed Enron Creditors Recovery Corp. to focus on liquidating pre-bankruptcy assets and operations.

Theranos

Theranos was a health technology company founded in 2003 in Palo Alto, California, that falsely claimed to perform rapid, accurate blood tests using minimal blood volume via proprietary devices; investigations revealed it relied on conventional machines, produced inaccurate results, voided two years of Edison data, and misrepresented its capabilities to investors, partners, and regulators.