Vince McMahon, who left his longtime WWE stature under a cloud last year, has paid more than $1.7 million to settle charges from the Securities and Exchange Commission alleging he failed to disclose financial payments to two women.
The SEC said the matter relates to settlement agreements that McMahon signed in 2019 and 2022 on behalf of himself and WWE without disclosing the agreements to the WWE board of directors or senior legal and financial executives. The SEC said in a press release that the non-disclosure led to “material misstatements” in WWE’s financial reporting.
The settlement agreements signed by McMahon are designed to prevent women from going public with sexual assault allegations or filing any legal complaints. One settlement agreement required McMahon to pay a former employee $3 million in exchange for the former employee's agreement not to disclose her relationship with McMahon and her release from potential claims against WWE and McMahon. The second agreement obligated McMahon to pay $7.5 million to a former independent contractor in WWE.
“Without admitting or denying the SEC's findings,” the press release said, McMahon agreed to pay a civil penalty of $400,000 for violating the Securities Exchange Act, as well as to compensate WWE in the amount of $1,330,915.90.
WWE, which McMahon built into a multibillion-dollar media operation, merged with the UFC in 2023, creating TKO Group Holdings. Endeavor holds a controlling interest in TKO. McMahon, who remains under investigation by the US Department of Justice regarding his conduct as WWE CEO, resigned from TKO's board of directors in the wake of a troubling lawsuit filed by a former employee accusing him of sexual assault, assault and trafficking.
“Corporate executives cannot enter into substantive agreements on behalf of the company they serve and withhold that information from the company's monitoring and auditor functions,” said Thomas P. Smith Jr., associate regional director in the New York regional office.
