MONTAUK, New York — Marc Rowan, CEO of Apollo Global Management, has been locked in a dispute with local authorities since 2019 over Duryea's Lobster Deck, a 90-seat waterfront restaurant he acquired in 2014.
Rowan maintains the establishment is not a restaurant, despite operating as a full dining venue serving $97 lobster salads and Dom Pérignon champagne. The transformation from a rustic bait shop to a high-end seafood destination has drawn celebrity clientele and consistent legal challenges.
Multiple lawsuits have followed. One neighbor, a Montauk resident since 1994, said the dispute illustrates a broader problem: "Money and power should not exempt you from the same laws that we have to follow."
For Apollo investors, the dispute matters. A CEO's willingness to wage a prolonged legal campaign against a municipality over a side venture signals something about how he operates when money and power collide with rules. The case tests whether public firm governance structures adequately scrutinize executive conduct outside the boardroom — particularly when that conduct involves circumventing local land-use law.
Apollo trades at a discount to peers partly because of governance concerns and Rowan's outsized control. This Montauk standoff won't move the stock, but it reinforces the baseline issue: accountability stops at the CEO's office door.
