There was a recent case where Oracle was being sued by the federal government for racial discrimination. Oracle quietly offered to settle, and Trump's labor secretary pushed to do it for $40 million, but he got raked over the coals by the liberal media for 'going easy on racist companies.' The case went before a Labor Department admin. judge, who ruled in favor of Oracle on all counts and said that the government's case was complete bullshit.
Point being - if you have very deep pockets, lots of other things to spend your time on, and no way to quickly and definitively disprove the allegations, it's worthwhile to pay off accusers for very large sums even if you're 100% completely innocent versus take on the reputational damage, and the risk of a massive award in a jury trial.