According to a new report from POST Wrestling, a judge has ruled in favor of unsealing redacted information in the WWE shareholder lawsuit concerning the 2023 merger.
Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics and POST Wrestling filed a notice of challenge in the Chancery Court of Delaware last December, arguing the redactions in various filings were overly broad concerning financial offers from other bidders.
The report notes that KKR is one of the groups attached to the WWE sale process and acknowledged by the entity in a deposition. KKR has concealed the specifics of its bid, arguing that the harm it would cause and its confidentiality would outweigh the public interest. It was further added that any future bidders would be scared off if they had knowledge that the terms of their bid would become public.
Thurston challenged the confidentiality, arguing “the information KKR seeks to seal goes to the heart of the underlying action: whether WWE’s board conducted a fair and competitive sale process. KKR has not demonstrated particularized harm sufficient to overcome the strong public interest in access.” Thurston also argues that KKR’s bid came with caveats regarding the participation of Vince McMahon in the transfer, and that is relevant to the public.
Furthermore it is being said that KKR would have to persuade the court that there was a “particularized harm” in revealing the information and showing tangible evidence to support its argument.
Vice Chancellor Travis Laster issued his ruling on Wednesday and agreed to protect the cell phone numbers of the parties in question.
Laster further denied KKR’s request for continued confidentiality of the bidding terms, stating that KKR “failed to identify any particularized harm that would result from the information becoming public” and that its argument for the harm it would cause was insufficient.
When the sale process began, KKR entered into a confidentiality agreement WWE. It stated that awhen KKR engaged in the bidding process, the company understood it could be subject to litigation.
The report concluded by noting the court has ordered sides to file an updated public version of its documents and remove the prior redactions in which KKR sought to maintain.
We reported on Wednesday that the plaintiffs in a shareholder lawsuit against WWE are accused a number of the company’s former and current executives of destroying relevant evidence regarding the WWE merger that led to the formation of TKO Group. Delaware Chancery Court was been asked to sanction the defendants in the case, consisting of Vince McMahon, Nick Khan, and Paul “Triple H” Levesque.