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The federal Securities and Exchange Commission announced Friday that it settled with WWE cofounder and former CEO Vince McMahon for two charges in his hush money cases.
McMahon signed two settlement agreements on behalf of himself and WWE without disclosing that information to the company, leading to misreported financial information, the SEC found. The 2019 settlement was for $3 million to a former employee to keep her quiet about her relationship with McMahon and any potential claims. The 2022 settlement was for $7.5 million to an independent contractor to not share her allegations against McMahon or any potential claims.
McMahon agreed to the two settlements with the SEC without admitting or denying the agency’s findings. He agreed to cease-and-desist from violating the Securities Exchange Act (again), pay $400,000 as a penalty, and give WWE $1,330,915.90. (That amount is calculated from a section of law known as the “clawback provision” that says CEOs and CFOs have to pay back a certain portion of their bonuses or specific profits if accounting is misreported due to misconduct.)
“The case is closed. Today ends nearly three years of investigation by different governmental agencies,” McMahon said in a statement to Front Office Sports.
“In the end, there was never anything more to this than minor accounting errors with regard to some personal payments that I made several years ago while I was CEO of WWE. I’m thrilled that I can now put all this behind me.”
While McMahon’s legal issues from the settlements may be resolved, he still faces several cases from the alleged conduct that led to the settlements. Janel Grant, the woman who agreed to the 2022 settlement after saying that McMahon sexually assaulted and trafficked her, is suing McMahon and WWE in Connecticut. Federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York requested a pause in that lawsuit while they conducted a criminal investigation; the stay was lifted last month.
The SEC found McMahon didn’t tell WWE’s board, legal department, accountants, financial reporting personnel, or auditor about the settlements with the women. “Doing so circumvented WWE’s system of internal accounting controls and caused material misstatements in WWE’s 2018 and 2021 financial statements,” the SEC said. The company overstated its net income by about 8% for 2018 and about 1.7% for 2021, according to the SEC. The SEC found McMahon signed letters to WWE’s auditor that left out the hush money settlements. After WWE learned of the situation, it reissued its financial statements in August 2022.
WWE and its parent companies, TKO and Endeavor, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
News that federal investigators and the SEC had launched an investigation into McMahon’s hush money payments first broke in July 2022, leading him to step down from WWE. He rejoined in 2023 to help facilitate the merger with UFC and Endeavor to create TKO Group Holdings.
McMahon resigned as executive chairman of TKO and his spot on the company’s board of directors in January 2024 following a former employee’s filing of a sexual assault and sex trafficking lawsuit against him. (He has been selling off his shares of TKO, but still owned nearly a billion dollars’ worth of stock in the $24 billion company as of November.) Janel Grant said she suffered “physical and emotional abuse, sexual assault and trafficking at WWE” from 2019 to 2022, including from McMahon and former head of talent relations John Laurinaitis, both of whom she says forced themselves upon her. She also says McMahon tried to get her to have sex with a wrestler he wanted to sign to WWE.
“The SEC’s charges prove that the NDA Vince McMahon coerced Ms. Grant into signing violates the law, and therefore her case must be heard in court,” Grant’s attorney Ann Callis said in a statement Friday.
He is also listed as a defendant in another sexual abuse claim filed in October that says McMahon and his wife, Linda, “knowingly allowed” a ring crew chief to hire and abuse underaged boys. That lawsuit is stayed pending a challenge in the Supreme Court of Maryland.
President-elect Donald Trump tapped Linda McMahon—who says she and Vince are separated—to run the Department of Education. She led the Small Business Administration during his first term.
