Hogs
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- Mar 20, 2019
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USA TODAY Sports
When news emerged three years ago of multiple confidential settlements involving Panthers founder Jerry Richardson, that was news to the NFL. Soon, Richardson sold the team.
When news emerged last week of a $1.6 million confidential settlement involving Washington owner Daniel Snyder, it was widely assumed that it was news to the NFL. Per a source with knowledge of the situation, it was not.
According to the source, the NFL knew about the settlement in 2009, the year that it was negotiated.
The NFL declined comment on the issue in a Monday evening email to PFT, citing an ongoing investigation. And there indeed is an ongoing investigation regarding the Washington Football Team, started by the team but commandeered by the league.
In written testimony submitted to a federal court last week, Snyder claimed that the allegations were investigated by an outside law firm, that no wrongdoing was found, and that an insurance company chose to settle the claim.
Earlier this month, the Washington Post reported on the existence of litigation involving Beth Wilkinson, the attorney handling the Washington investigation, and David P. Donovan, Washington’s former general counsel, involving efforts to secure information about a confidential settlement from more than a decade ago. It’s unclear whether the confidential settlement at issue in the litigation is the same settlement as the $1.6 million payment disclosed by the Post last week. If, however, the NFL already knew about the $1.6 million settlement from 2009, there presumably would be no need for Wilkinson to fight to get more information about the settlement.
In other words, it’s possible that there’s another confidential settlement.
Regardless, the league knew about the confidential settlement in the amount of $1.6 million paid on Snyder’s behalf in 2009. By all appearances, the league took no action — possibly because the league concluded at the time that no wrongdoing occurred.