A new court filing has revealed the full financial breakdown of the settlement in WWE’s shareholder lawsuit involving Vince McMahon and several current and former company executives.
According to a report from Bloomberg Law, McMahon and his insurers will pay $42.5 million toward the resolution of the case.
The total settlement amounts to $147.5 million, with WWE parent company TKO contributing $105 million. TKO is expected to recover $75 million of its portion through insurance coverage.
The lawsuit was filed by a group of WWE shareholders against McMahon, WWE President Nick Khan, Paul “Triple H” Levesque, former co-presidents Michelle Wilson and George Barrios, alleging that WWE’s 2023 sale and merger process was directed toward Endeavor in a way that would leave McMahon in a favorable position following the transaction.
The case was set to go to trial earlier this summer before the parties reached a settlement shortly before proceedings were scheduled to begin.
Neither WWE/TKO nor Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel were named as defendants in the lawsuit.
Bloomberg also reported that the settlement has yet to be finalized because of an ongoing dispute between McMahon and the other defendants regarding indemnification agreements with their insurers.
“The shareholders leading the case disclosed the full $147.5 million figure in a court filing Friday, criticizing WWE parent company TKO Group Holdings Inc., which is a publicly traded Silver Lake subsidiary, for making ‘partial disclosures’ in a securities filing that led ‘an incomplete picture of the full settlement’ to circulate in the press.”
The report continued, “Meanwhile, foot-dragging by the WWE side of the litigation ‘is creating larger problems,’ the shareholders said in their letter to the court, a reference to a filing Thursday that cited a dispute between McMahon and his co-defendants over the details of their indemnification agreements with their insurers.”
