WWE is being asked not to implement confidentiality promises with its stream and former employees and contractors in the wake of sex trafficking allegations against former WWE co-founder Vince McMahon.
The request comes from Janel Handover, who is suing McMahon, WWE and former corporate executive John Laurinaitis over various allegations of sexual misconduct.
“If WWE and its parent company, Endeavor, are serious about parting ways with Vince McMahon and the toxic work culture he created, their executives should have no problem releasing former WWE employees from their confidentiality agreements” Handover attorney Ann Callis said in a comment. Monday in print via the Associated Press. “This is the first step in rehabilitating a company that covered up decades of sexual assault and human trafficking.”
The Associated Press reached out to the defendant groups for comment. A spokesman for McMahon, Curtis Vogel, declined to comment. Lawyers for WWE and Laurinaitis did not immediately respond to the newsletter, nor did WWE and its parent companies, Project Team Holdings, and its subsidiary, TKO Crew Holdings.
Deliver sued McMahon and Laurinaitis in January, making clear accusations of sexual assault, harassment, trafficking and alternative abuses. McMahon, who resigned as president of the government The TKO board member after the lawsuit was filed has denied Handover’s allegations. McMahon was also allegedly under federal investigation for sex trafficking.
Handover worked for WWE between 2019 and 2022. He signed a $3 million confidentiality pledge with WWE. Handover’s lawsuit seeks to invalidate that word of honor, alleging that McMahon breached the deal by paying just $1 million.
Four other women previously affiliated with WWE signed confidentiality pledges, according to a 2022 report by The Wall Street Magazine.
A federal law passed in 2022 and equivalent regulations in more than a handful of states limit the value of NDAs to prohibit victims of sexual harassment from going public with their allegations.
