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Message: [QUOTE="jncuse, post: 4310315, member: 1969"] Agree 100% that Vince is a sleaze, but he was not paid for these settlements. That being said some of the wrestling media needs to stick to creative issues and not interpreting business or financial information, because many of them are not good at that! The bolded comment above is not accurate at all. I suspect they misinterpreted the "or will" part in the 8-K disclosure. This has resulted in fans across the country saying there was embezzlement, fraud, and other wild things. Its odd because Meltzer himself had it reported right today on the POST Podcast on Toronto, but whomever wrote the article on the observer site did not have it right. Not trying to defend scummy Vince at all (he clearly deserves his fate), but some of these interpretations bother me on a professional level. Here is the paragraph in today's WWE 8-K "The Company 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 (the “Unrecorded Expenses”). As of the date hereof, the Company has identified Unrecorded Expenses totaling approximately $14.6 million. [B]All payments underlying the Unrecorded Expenses were or will be paid by Vince McMahon personally[/B]" Not sure if some are getting confused with the "or will" part. The "or will" part does not imply that the WWE made any payments -- it relates to the fact that the settlements had instalment payments, some of which Vince has not yet been required to make (think of the one disclosed in the first WSJ article which laid out this structure). The WWE has to word it that way because that is the way accounting works. The unrecorded expense is for the full settlement not what has been paid to date. [B]The Accounting Issue in Simpler Context (Maybe)[/B] It's not a simple accounting issue because the company has not made a payment, and might not be reimbursing the party who made the payment. So where is the expense? But that is not always the case when the company has a clear benefit from an agreement, especially one signed by one of its officers. Since we are talking wrestling I will use an example with violence. Jim and Bob are co-workers. Jim pisses off Bob at work, Bob responds by going to Jim's office and giving him fourteen chair shots causing severe trauma to Jim's head. Bob agrees to personally pay Jim $100,000 (he feels personally paying it will appease his employee) - but as part of the agreement Jim agrees that he will not sue or further pursue Bob or his employer. This agreement is also signed by their boss, a signing officer of the company. The company has paid and will pay nothing -- but they have clearly benefitted from this agreement since they will not be sued or have to pay further damages because of the agreement which one of their officers signed. Therefore the $100,000 should be recorded as an expense on the books of the company. Essentially Vince, an officer of the WWE, signed an agreement that exonerated both Vince personally and most likely the WWE of future damages. So while the WWE paid nothing, and only Vince was aware of the settlements (and paid them), clearly the WWE benefitted from the agreement since they would no longer be sued, and they would not have pay any damages for something done by one of its employees. So even if they will never pay a thing that benefit should be recorded as an expense. The expense was missed by the WWE in the past, because Vince kept most of these settlements and agreements to himself and a small circle that probably did not include the CFO or reporting team. Its not your standard fraud. Vince did not take or steal any money from the company. But he certainly signed some material agreements that should have been reported to / and or approved by the board or disclosed. But we know why he hid them and it resulted in material information not being disclosed to the public. Not sure if its fraud, but its very likely a significant SEC violation and violation of his employment agreement. And certainly was one of the primary factors that led to his demise. [/QUOTE]

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