After reports emerged last month of an investigation by federal prosecutors, the SEC and FBI into Mark Walter, owner of the PWHL, and his companies, more details have continued to emerge.
According to a report from the Wall Street this week, it was an internal whistleblower who got the ball rolling.
As the Wall Street Journal explained, "The complaint questioned how Walter’s asset-management firm, Guggenheim Investments, booked revenue from dealings with insurance companies and had drawn interest from federal prosecutors by last year, people familiar with the matter said."
And what was once being referred to as "financial improprieties" is now being called an investigation into potential fraud.
As the Wall Street Journal reported, investigators are looking into Walter, Guggenheim Investments, and TWG Global as "the authorities are trying to determine whether the activity constituted fraud."
At question is the reporting of a sum of money that Walter's companies re-invested into other Mark Walter affiliated holdings and entities. That sum is $16 billion, but was originally reported as only $1 billion. The companies in question, namely Delaware Life, had originally reported the equivalent of 3% of their investments, which was found to be closer to 42%.
It all hinges on a financial maneuver known as "related-party transactions."
As the Los Angeles Times explained, related-party transactions, specifically the type under federal investigation within Walter's companies, "are deals between entities with business or personal ties, including loans, sales and other transactions, that can have legitimate reasons but pose potential conflicts of interest and typically require extra scrutiny."
Walter, as reported by the Los Angeles Times, used similar maneuvers to purchase the Los Angeles Dodgers in 2012, a deal that was vetted by regulators and approved. As the Wall Street Journal, it was this strategy that "supplied the financial firepower" for Walter to buy the MLB team.
Despite the scrutiny, the investigation could prove that there were no improprieties or fraudulent behavior, and that the companies, and Mark Walter, were operating for legitimate purposes and with no ill intent.
As Bloomberg writes, "There’s nothing improper about insurers making loans to related parties, but insurance rules require them to be disclosed, and regulators give them special scrutiny to try to ensure that a firm’s owners don’t put their interests ahead of policyholders’."
Investigations have yet to publicly reveal what the money was used for within Walter's compnies and business affiliations. It's also unknown if the money was used for any of Walter's sporting investments as previously done for the Dodgers. Walter launched the PWHL in 2023 owning all 12 teams and the league itself, and in October of 2025, Walter was approved to make the $10 billion purchase of the NBA's Los Angeles Lakers.
According to Bloomberg, the investigation has focused in on a Chicago firm known as Hudson Trading Inc.
As Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar to the matter who asked for anonymity, "Investigators are trying to determine whether the Hudson-related entities were used as cutouts, allowing the insurers to report that loans went to independent third parties when the money actually flowed back to Walter ventures, the people said."
The Hockey News reached out to the PWHL for comment. The PWHL in turn referred THN to Prosek, who handles communications for TWG Global, submitting a request for comment. No response has been provided.
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