Rupert Murdoch's family succession battle will remain confidential, judge rules
93-year-old billionaire Rupert Murdoch’s legal effort to rewrite the terms of an irrevocable family trust will remain confidential, a Nevada judge ruled.
The battle for Rupert Murdoch’s media kingdom will play out behind closed doors.
The 93-year-old billionaire’s legal effort to rewrite the terms of an irrevocable family trust will remain confidential, a Nevada judge ruled Thursday. The judge rejected a petition from a coalition of major news organizations seeking to make the court proceedings public.
“A family trust like the one at issue in this case, even when it is a stockholder in publicly traded companies, is essentially a private legal arrangement, as the applicable sealing statutes recognize,” the judge from the Second Judicial District Court in Reno wrote in an 18-page decision. (Reno probate court frequently deals with family trusts and estates.)
The case has drawn intense interest from power players in the overlapping worlds of media, entertainment and politics. Murdoch is one of the most influential press barons of the modern age and his family owns prized assets such as Fox News and The Wall Street Journal. The wealthy clan’s public and private dramas inspired the HBO series “Succession.”
Murdoch reportedly wants to alter the terms of the family trust so that his eldest son, Lachlan, inherits his throne and keeps control of their sprawling business empire. But three of the mogul’s other children — James, Elisabeth and Prudence — are pushing back, insisting that all four siblings continue to receive equal voting shares.
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