WWE Revising Financial Statements To Reflect Vince McMahon Hush Money Payments As Company Expenses

WWE has officially entered the post-Vince McMahon era. McMahon recently retired amid a massive hush money scandal where he paid employees off to keep quiet about intimate relationships with the boss. Now, WWE has taken the step of officially considering those payments “company expenses.”

A new report in Variety notes that WWE will revise financial statements dating back to 2019. $14.6 million in “certain payments” made by Vince McMahon as chairman and CEO of the company will be counted as corporate expenses. The change was revealed in an SEC filing this morning.

WWE’s investigation of the Vince McMahon scandal has determined that payments by McMahon from 2006 through 2022 should have been recorded in WWE’s consolidated financial statements. The update to the financial statements will reflect that.

“[WWE] has made a preliminary determination that certain payments that Vince McMahon agreed to make during the period from 2006 through 2022 (including amounts paid and payable in the future), and that were not recorded in the WWE consolidated financial statements, should have been recorded as expenses in the quarters in which those agreements were made.”

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All of the payments were or will be paid from Vince McMahon’s funds. WWE said that those payments were not material in any period in which they paid, meaning it would not affect business. However, putting them all in the current quarter’s statements would make a material difference. Therefore, prior statements will be amended to include the payments.

In the SEC report, WWE said it expects to conclude that McMahon’s payments over 16 years were the result of poor internal control over financial reporting as a result of one or more material weaknesses. That means changes had to come. While there shouldn’t be any major fallout from the move, it is a case of WWE officially acknowledging that mistakes were made internally in the handling of Vince McMahon’s hush money payments.

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