12/09/2024

Rupert Murdoch Fails in Bid to Change Family Trust

A Nevada commissioner ruled resoundingly against Murdoch

A Nevada commissioner ruled resoundingly against Rupert Murdoch's attempt to change his family's trust to consolidate his eldest son Lachlan's control of his media empire and lock in Fox News' right-wing editorial slant, according to a sealed court document obtained by The New York Times.

The commissioner, Edmund J. Gorman, Jr., concluded in a decision filed on Saturday that the father and son, who is the head of Fox News and News Corp., had acted in "bad faith" in their effort to amend the irrevocable trust, which divides control of the company equally among Murdoch's four oldest children — Lachlan, James, Elisabeth and Prudence — after his death.

The ruling was at times scathing. At one point in his 96-page opinion, Gorman characterizes the plan to change the trust as a "carefully crafted charade" to "permanently cement Lachlan Murdoch's executive roles" inside the empire "regardless of the impacts such control would have over the companies or the beneficiaries" of the family trust.

Please select this link to read the complete article from The New York Times.