DISCLOSURE: Brandon Thurston is directly affiliated with POST Wrestling and co-hosts a weekly show with John Pollock on this site
A judge has ruled in favor of unsealing redacted information in the WWE shareholder lawsuit concerning its 2023 merger.
Reporter Brandon Thurston of Wrestlenomics and this site filed a notice of challenge in the Chancery Court of Delaware last December, arguing that the redactions in various filings were overly broad concerning the financial offers among bidders.
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 outweigh the public interest. Further, it added that future bidders would be scared off if they had knowledge that the terms of their bid would become public.
Thurston challenged the confidentiality and argued, “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.” In addition, Thurston argues that KKR’s bid came with caveats regarding the participation of Vince McMahon in the transfer, and that is relevant to the public.
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, which Thurston did not oppose.
Laster 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.
While KKR entered into a confidentiality agreement with WWE when the process was underway, the agreement is not dispositive, and with the merger completed, there is no risk of harm to an ongoing process. When KKR engaged in the bidding process, it understood that it could be subject to litigation.
The court has ordered parties to file an updated public version of its documents and remove the prior redactions that KKR sought to maintain.
