Vince McMahon has settled charges filed by the Securities and Exchange Commission in regard to his failure to disclose WWE’s settlement agreements totaling $10.5 million with two women.
The announcement was made on Friday. The breakdown is a $400,000 civil penalty and reimburse the WWE $1.33 million. This comes after the SEC said McMahon circumvented WWE’s internal accounting, which caused material misstatements from 2018 and 2021 financial statements.
As a result, WWE overstated its 2018 net income by approximately 8% and 2021 net income by approximately 1.7%. McMahon agreed to the settlement without admitting or denying its findings. McMahon allegedly failed to disclose one $3 million payment paid to a former WWE employee, and another $7.5 million paid to a female independent contractor to prevent them from filing claims against him.
The Wall Street Journal previously reported that McMahon had paid a total of $12 million over 16 years to suppress allegations of sexual misconduct and infidelity. McMahon issued the following statement:
“The case is closed. Today ends nearly three years of investigation by different governmental agencies. There has been a great deal of speculation about what exactly the government was investigating and what the outcome would be. As today’s resolution shows, much of that speculation was misguided and misleading. 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.”
Ann Callis, attorney for Janel Grant, the former WWE employee and sexual assault and human trafficking survivor, released the following statement:
“During his time leading WWE, Vince McMahon acted as if rules did not apply to him, and now we have confirmation that he repeatedly broke the law to cover up his horrifying behavior, including human trafficking. 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. While prosecutors for the Southern District of New York continue their criminal investigation, we look forward to bringing forward new evidence in our civil case about the sexual exploitation Ms. Grant endured at WWE by Vince McMahon and John Laurinaitis.”
McMahon resigned from all his roles within TKO, including executive chairman and member of the TKO Board of Directors, following a lawsuit filed by Janel Grant against McMahon, WWE, and John Laurinaitis that included horrific allegations from the former WWE employee. McMahon has denied Grant’s allegations.
