Apollo Global Management Private equity company logo seen displayed on smart phone. Photo: IgorGolovniov/Shutterstock

An New York City-based arbitrator has ordered two former employees of the Apollo Global Management LLC to pay a combined $1.15 million in damages after finding that they had misused the public equity giant's confidential information while seeking to start their own firm.

The strongly worded ruling from JAMS arbitrator Mark E. Segall found that Imran Siddiqui, a former managing director at Apollo, had breached a prior settlement agreement with the company and improperly recruited his associate, Ming Dang, to aid him in starting Caldera Holdings LLC.

Siddiqui and Dang were ordered to destroy any of Apollo's confidential information still in their possession and to pay the costs of a forensic examiner appointed to oversee their compliance with the ruling.

While Segall cited “serious credibility issues” and a “lack of a moral compass” on the part of Dang, the arbitrator, however, found no evidence for Apollo's most serious claim that its former employees had used top-secret information in a bid to acquire a company that Apollo had already targeted through its life insurance unit Athene Holding Ltd.

The ruling awarded just a fraction of the $300 million that Apollo had requested in the arbitration and refused Apollo's request for a permanent injunction that would have barred Caldera from ever seeking a tie-up with the other company, which was not identified in the redacted document.

The final arbitration award, dated April 26, was made public Monday in a $1.5 billion Manhattan Supreme Court case accusing Apollo and its founder, Leon Black, of attempting to undermine Caldera's reputation in the marketplace.

An Apollo spokesman hailed Segall's ruling as a victory, saying that it “fully vindicates our position regarding the conduct of Mr. Siddiqui and Mr. Dang.”

“We will continue to take any and all necessary steps to protect the trust and integrity of our business, our clients, and our investors,” the spokesman said in a statement.

According to the ruling, Siddiqui had breached the terms of a 2018 settlement to a previous JAMS proceeding, which required him to forfeit nearly $15 million in partnership interests he held in Apollo and to return any of the firm's confidential information. Siddiqui, however, admitted to not running any searches of his email accounts, despite swearing under the penalty of perjury that he had.

The filing said that Siddiqui began sending internal Apollo reports and analyses in 2016 from his personal Gmail account to Dang and others. Segall said Dang meanwhile was “actively” involved in efforts to solicit Apollo investors to do business with Caldera going forward. Both Saddiqui and Dang, Segall found, had taken “many active steps” to hide their actions.

Apollo filed its second arbitration proceeding in December against Siddiqui, Dang and Caldera, alleging breaches of fiduciary duty and aiding and abetting Caldera's supposed attempt to acquire the outside firm.

In the ruling, Segall ordered Dang to pay Apollo about $1 million of the approximately $2 million he had earned while working at the firm, saying that he had been “disloyal to say the least” and that his actions were “impossible to justify” under Apollo's code of ethics. Siddiqui was ordered to pay $150,000 in punitive damages for breaching the earlier settlement agreement.

But Segall said that “in no sense can it be said that Apollo had prevailed on its claims against Siddiqui and Caldera. According to the ruling, “none of the actions” by Siddiqui and Caldera had prevented Apollo from pursuing the acquisition it had cited in the arbitration.

“Therefore, there is no evidence that Apollo suffered any damages from a failure on its part to acquire [redacted]. Leaving aside for the moment Apollo's failure to prove that Caldera used its confidential information in its bid for [redacted], there is no evidence Apollo was damaged by the existence of any bid by Caldera,” he wrote in the 23-page filing.

“Furthermore, the dollar and percentage amounts identified by Apollo are completely speculative,” he added.

Paul Niehaus, an attorney for Dang, said the case was really about Apollo's effort to prevent Caldera from competing with Athene.

“Apollo lost that case by a decision finding that no confidential information was stolen or used to unfairly compete with Athene, and was awarded zero relief against Caldera,” he said in a statement. “While we disagree with other findings made by the Tribunal with respect to Mr. Dang personally—particularly those which ignore contract language and the double standards to which Apollo holds only some of its employees—Mr. Dang looks forward to moving on.”

Lisa C. Solbakken, who represented Siddiqui in both the arbitration and the state court case, blasted Apollo's claim that it had succeeded, despite losing its bid for an injunction and $300 million in damages.

“The tribunal rejected this entirely—and awarded Apollo about 1/10th of one percent of this amount on unrelated claims,” she said in a statement. “This is less than the MetroCard reimbursement Apollo owed to the 25 lawyers it had working the case, and to call it a “win” is delusional.”