Vince McMahon to Pay Over 1.7 Million Dollars in Hush Money Settlements
World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) co-founder Vince McMahon will pay $1.7 million, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), for not disclosing covert payments he made while serving as CEO of the firm.
According to the SEC, McMahon signed two settlement agreements in 2019 and 2022, but he neglected to tell the board of directors, legal department, accounting staff, financial reporting staff, or auditors about these payments.
In return, McMahon “bypassed WWE’s internal accounting controls and made material misstatements in the company’s financial statements for 2018 and 2021,” said the SEC, accusing McMahon of failing to disclose payments of $3 million and $7.5 million made to a former WWE employee and a female independent contractor, respectively, to prevent them from reporting sexual harassment claims to the authorities.
“The matter is now closed,” McMahon said in a statement. “The nearly three-year investigation by various government agencies has now ended. There has been a lot of speculation about what the government was actually investigating and what the outcome would be. As today’s proposal shows, most of that speculation was wrong and misleading. In the end, there was nothing more than some minor accounting errors related to a few personal payments I made many years ago when I was CEO of WWE. I’m thrilled that I can now leave all of this behind.”
As a result of violating the Securities Exchange Act, McMahon was ordered to pay a $400,000 civil penalty and WWE was ordered to reimburse $1,330,915.90.
The Wall Street Journal reported in 2022 that the now 79-year-old McMahon had made a $3 million payment to a former employee. The report also mentioned that the payment was made to silence the woman from speaking about their relationship.
After federal authorities launched investigations into sexual harassment and trafficking charges against him, McMahon stepped down in 2024 from his role as executive chairman and board member of WWE’s parent company, TKO Group Holdings.