Mr. Glasser declined to comment, as did Bob Weinstein. The board members Tarak Ben Ammar and Richard Koenigsberg did not respond to messages.

The contract came up for renewal just as Ambra Battilana, an Italian model, reported to the police that Harvey Weinstein had groped her during a work meeting at his Manhattan office. (Working with the police, she captured Mr. Weinstein speaking about the encounter in audio that was published along with an article in The New Yorker on Tuesday.)

The district attorney’s office declined to press charges, and Mr. Weinstein insisted that it was a setup, but some board members and top executives worried that Mr. Weinstein had engaged in a pattern of behavior that could jeopardize the company.

After the episode, Mr. Maerov said, Mr. Weinstein refused to let the board review his personnel file directly. Instead, it was examined by an outside lawyer, H. Rodgin Cohen, who assured the board in a September 2015 letter that it was legally safe to retain Mr. Weinstein because there were no unresolved complaints or threats of litigation against him, according to two people who saw the letter and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Image Lance Maerov, the board member who handled Mr. Weinstein’s contract negotiations in 2015, acknowledged that he was told of settlements, but said he assumed they were used to cover up consensual affairs. Credit... Patrick McMullan, via Getty Images

In the file, Mr. Cohen came across a single sexual harassment allegation, from 2014, involving a former temporary employee, Emily Nestor, according to a person familiar with his review.

Ms. Nestor was new to the job at the company’s Los Angeles office when Mr. Weinstein invited her to breakfast at the Peninsula Beverly Hills and made her an offer: If she accepted his sexual advances, he would boost her career, according to accounts, viewed by The Times, that she provided to colleagues who passed them along to executives. She declined the offer and never intended to complain to human resources personnel, internal records show.