WWE shareholders drop lawsuit against Vince McMahon after $17.4M repayment

[Chris]

Following a Vince McMahon payment to WWE, a consolidated lawsuit filed in Delaware by shareholders against the company's Executive Chairman was dropped on Wednesday.

The development was reported by Bloomberg Law on Thursday.

The reason the suit was dropped was due to McMahon repaying WWE $17.4 million in late-March for expenses related to the investigation surrounding hush money allegations that came to light last summer. As a result, the initial reason for the lawsuit was considered moot.


The $17.4 million covers the cost of the investigation and not the near-$20 million McMahon allegedly paid multiple accusers of sexual misconduct. McMahon resigned from WWE last summer under the pretense of retirement, only to force his way back onto the Board in January in an effort to lead the sale of the company.

An interesting note from the Bloomberg piece stated that lawyers for the consolidated shareholders group want a "mootness fee" for their efforts:

Counsel for the WWE investors indicated they plan to seek a “mootness fee” as a reward for their role in forcing McMahon’s hand.
A different group of shareholders is already seeking a mootness fee after dropping a related case when McMahon walked back some bylaw changes he’d pushed through as part of his corporate coup in early January. McMahon had left the board in mid-2022.

The dropped lawsuit is unrelated to the lawsuit filed Monday against McMahon and others in WWE by a former writer claiming the company released her after she objected to multiple instances of “offensively racist and stereotypical jargon” used in scripts.

https://www.f4wonline.com/news/wwe/wwe-shareholders-drop-consolidated-lawsuit-against-vince-mcmahon