They have legal slush funds. Every year they get sued and pay money out. They can just move money around, "replenish" the legal fund etc. A forensic accountant could probably figure it out. Probably comparing legal expenses year over year to see if there was a significant anomaly last year would be a start. GAAP allows a metric shit ton of horsef***ery on financial statements as long as it's *foototed. Footnotes don't have to be decipherable either, unless and until the SEC takes issue with them.How do they hide it on the shareholder's report, etc?
If CNN had actually paid out 17% of their annual gross revenue to a single individual, seems like that'd be tough to hide on the balance sheet.
But there's no way in hell they paid anywhere near 300mm. That would be public. There's like a 0% chance that little peckerhead kid like Kyle would say no to any 7 figure settlement. I bet he got a couple mil at most.