Update On WWE Shareholder Lawsuit Trial Cancellation

The WWE shareholder lawsuit will not be going to trial, and a new report has details on why the trial was cancelled on short notice. As noted earlier, the trial in the lawsuit over the WWE/TKO merger was scheduled to start on Monday, but was taken off the schedule on Friday evening. The Court Administrator for the Delaware Court of Chancery Tamara Burton that the trial has been cancelled confirmed that the trial was cancelled.

Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics and POST Wrestling confirmed on Sunday afternoon that the trial has been cancelled due to a pending agreement between the two sides. Burton told Thurston:

“At the parties’ request, the trial is cancelled. The parties have advised the court that they will present the settlement for approval in due course.”

Essentially, that means the two sides have reached an agreement to settle the suit.

The lawsuit was filed in November of 2023 against Vince McMahon, Nick Khan, Triple H, George Barrios, and Michelle Wilson. It alleged that the TKO merger resulted in damages to WWE shareholders by undervaluing WWE. It alleged that WWE’s investigation into McMahon on sexual misconduct allegations was a “sham” and that McMahon manipulated the sale process to Endeavor for his benefit. The claim was that this ultimately breached the defendants’ fiduciary duty to shareholders.

A pre-triual briefing had been filed by the plaintiffs on Friday ahead of the trial that laid out their argument for why WWE was undervalued in the TKO merger. The plaintiffs cited an expert report by financial economist James L. Canessa, who the plaintiffs retained, which estimates damages to shareholders as a whole ranged from $446 million to $949 million.