McMahon, WWE and Grant Seek Move to Private Arbitration in Sex Trafficking Case

McMahon, WWE and Grant Seek Move to Private Arbitration in Sex Trafficking Case

All parties in the civil lawsuit brought by Janel Grant against Vince McMahon and WWE have filed a joint motion requesting a temporary adjournment of a scheduled court hearing, citing active negotiations to transfer the dispute into confidential arbitration. The motion was filed in Connecticut District Court. A hearing on the defendants' motions to compel arbitration and Grant's renewed motion for leave to serve motion-related discovery had been set for June 16.

In their joint filing, the parties stated they "are in active discussions regarding a potential agreement to arbitrate the dispute in confidential arbitration that would moot those motions." They requested the court temporarily adjourn the hearing and allow a joint status report to be submitted within 21 days, describing the request as made "in good faith, to avoid unnecessarily consuming the Court's and the parties' resources."

Grant, who worked at WWE from June 2019 to 2022, filed a lawsuit accusing McMahon of sexual assault and sex trafficking, alleging she was "subjected to repeated physical and emotional abuse, sexual assault and sexual trafficking" perpetrated by McMahon, and that senior WWE officials and talent "knew about and facilitated the abuse." McMahon has maintained his innocence. TKO Group, responding to the allegations when the lawsuit was initially filed in January 2024, said the company took Grant's allegations "very seriously," adding that the matter "predates our TKO executive team's tenure at the company."

McMahon resigned as WWE's chief executive in 2022 amid a separate internal investigation into misconduct allegations. He subsequently resigned from his position as executive chairman of TKO Group in January 2024, following the filing of Grant's lawsuit. Should the parties reach a formal arbitration agreement within the proposed 21-day window, the case would move out of federal court and into a private proceeding, limiting future public disclosure of filings and hearings.