Apollo Global Management LLC is facing a new lawsuit over its prior ownership of Core Media Group Inc., the production company behind reality television competitions “American Idol” and “So You Think You Can Dance” that slipped into bankruptcy in 2016, WSJ Pro Bankruptcy reported. The lawsuit was filed on Friday in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in New York by a trust representing Core Media creditors. The complaint expands the scope of existing litigation against Apollo, which was already facing a related lawsuit pending in New York State Court v. Apollo and three former directors of Core before the company’s bankruptcy are accused in the new lawsuit of devising a series of transactions beginning in 2014 that allowed the firm to cash out its investment at the expense of creditors. The trust also filed a separate lawsuit last week over distribution rights for the television game show “The Wall,” which Core also developed. The “American Idol” lawsuit is seeking to compensate the “debtors and their creditors, who were left unpaid hundreds of millions of dollars” for losses the trust alleges were caused by Apollo. The private-equity firm acquired the business through a leveraged buyout that was financed in part with a $360 million bridge loan, the lawsuit said.
