Former CEO of WWE, Vince McMahon, has agreed to a settlement with the Securities and Trade Fee (SEC) after failing to reveal earlier undisclosed hush cash settlement agreements to the WWE Board, violating the Securities Trade Act. The third-generation promoter should now pay a $400,000 civil penalty and reimburse WWE $1.33 million. These funds come from hush cash settlements McMahon made with two former employees in 2019 and 2022.
Following the above information being launched by the SEC on Friday, McMahon printed a response on X, minimizing the severity of those investigations and their findings. In his assertion, McMahon wrote, “The case is closed. In the present day ends practically three years of investigation by completely different governmental companies. There was quite a lot of hypothesis about what precisely the federal government was investigating and what the result could be. As right this moment’s decision exhibits, a lot of that hypothesis was misguided and deceptive. Ultimately, there was by no means something extra to this than minor accounting errors with regard to some private funds that I made a number of years in the past whereas I used to be CEO of WWE. I am thrilled that I can now put all this behind me.”
— Vince McMahon (@VinceMcMahon) January 10, 2025
Moreover, the SEC reported that one of many undisclosed settlements required the previous figurehead to pay a former worker $3 million in alternate for the previous worker not disclosing their relationship with McMahon or releasing potential claims towards him and WWE. The opposite settlement was made between a former firm impartial contractor and McMahon to not reveal allegations towards him or launch potential claims towards him and WWE. The fee additionally famous that McMahon’s not disclosing these agreements to WWE’s board, authorized division, accountants, monetary reporting personnel, or auditor “circumvented WWE’s system of inside accounting controls and prompted materials misstatements within the firm’s 2018 and 2021 monetary statements.” As a result of these funds weren’t disclosed by McMahon to the WWE Board, the corporate overstated its 2018 web revenue by roughly 8%, and its 2021 web revenue by about 1.7%. This month marks one yr since McMahon resigned from the corporate he helped construct right into a worldwide sports activities leisure juggernaut.
