Vince McMahon has just reached a settlement with the government in his hush money case… with the former WWE boss agreeing to spend over $1.7 million to keep the matter quiet.
The Securities and Exchange Commission said Friday that McMahon paid a former employee $3 million in 2019 and a former independent contractor $7.5 million in 2022 in exchange for her silence on the allegations against him and his company, the WWE.
However, the SEC says McMahon never properly disclosed the agreements to the WWE board of directors and other wrestling organization officials. – a big no-no that led to violations.
“Corporate executives must not enter into material agreements on behalf of the company they serve and withhold this information from the company's control functions and auditor,” said Thomas P. Smith Jr., director of the New York regional office.
To remedy the situation, the SEC said McMahon agreed to pay a $400,000 fine… and repay $1,330,915.90 to WWE.
It should be noted that federal authorities said McMahon neither admitted nor denied their findings.
McMahon said in a statement on X Friday morning that he was “thrilled” by the resolution.
“The case is closed,” he wrote. “Today marks the end of almost three years of investigations by various government agencies. There was a lot of speculation about what exactly the government was investigating and what the outcome would be.”
“As today’s resolution shows, much of this speculation was misguided and misleading. In the end, there were never more than minor accounting errors regarding some personal payments I made as CEO of WWE several years ago. “I'm thrilled to be able to put all of this behind me now.
The Wall Street Journal It was first reported that McMahon was under investigation in 2022 for alleged hush money payments… and the fallout from it all led to the 79-year-old stepping down from his role in WWE.
He later returned… but after an explosive sexual assault lawsuit filed by a former WWE employee, he resigned as CEO of TKO, the company that owns WWE.