It’s a long article, but the main point is:

In a new ruling in the WWE merger lawsuit, in which the shareholders challenge the Endeavor deal that created TKO, Vice Chancellor J. Travis Laster found that Vince McMahon and WWE President Nick Khan destroyed evidence. As a consequence, the court will treat five damaging facts as presumptively true when the case goes to trial next month.

Laster, who presides over the case in the Delaware Court of Chancery, issued the 41-page opinion on Tuesday evening following an earlier hearing on May 13 about the related motion. The judge found that McMahon, Khan, as well as three others — WWE Chief Content Officer Paul Levesque and former WWE executives Stephanie McMahon and Brad Blum — all used Signal’s auto-delete function, which wiped out messages they had a legal duty to preserve. Signal is an encrypted messaging app that allows users to set messages to automatically disappear after a chosen period of time: hours, days, or not at all.

The ruling is a significant setback for the defendants, who are Vince McMahon, Nick Khan, Paul Levesque, George Barrios, and Michelle Wilson. The case will now be harder, specifically for McMahon and Khan, to prevail against the shareholder plaintiffs’ allegations.

Laster listed the five presumed facts as follows:

• Emanuel’s promise to provide Vince with a continued role at any post-merger company after a transaction influenced Vince’s decision-making with respect to the merger.

• Emanuel’s offer of indemnification and other legal support related to pending federal investigations of Vince’s alleged misconduct influenced Vince’s decision-making with respect to the merger.

• Vince decided to pursue a transaction with Endeavor in 2022, before the Company initiated the strategic review process.

• Khan communicated with Emanuel between August and December 2022 to facilitate a transaction between WWE and Endeavor.

• Vince and Khan worked with [advisement firm] Raine to steer the process toward a deal with Endeavor and away from other potential bidders.

In most civil lawsuits, the party making the accusations has to prove its claims. The burden is now on the defendants to disprove these five facts. The defendants now must disprove these claims by “clear and convincing evidence,” a higher standard than by a “preponderance of the evidence,” had Laster not ordered these sanctions.

The ruling does not determine whether McMahon, Khan, or the other defendants will be found liable. Laster will ultimately make that decision at some point after the trial, scheduled to take place from June 8 to 12.