On the morning of a special meeting of the family trust — at which Lachlan Murdoch and his father Rupert introduced their plan to ensure Lachlan would hold control of the family’s sprawling media empire after Rupert’s death — Lachlan texted his sister Elisabeth: “Today is about Dad’s wishes and confirming all of our support for him and for his wishes. It shouldn’t be difficult or controversial. Love you, Lachlan.”
Well, who could have anticipated that the ensuing succession drama (named Project Harmony by Rupert) wouldn’t work out that way?
The remainder of Murdoch’s eldest quartet — James, Elisabeth and Prudence — took their father to court over the proposed changes in a Nevada court case that’s been shrouded in secrecy. Today, commissioner Edmund J. Gorman Jr has ruled in their favour, deeming, in what The New York Times calls a “sometimes scathing” decision, that Rupert and Lachlan acted in bad faith in trying to amend the irrevocable trust.
Here are some of our favourite details from this utterly bizarre episode of the Murdoch drama.
Scathing ruling
According to the initial NYT reporting, Rupert had characterised the changes to the trust as the only way to protect the company’s commercial value for his heirs: “only by empowering Lachlan to run the company without interference from his more politically moderate siblings can he preserve its conservative editorial bent”.
Gorman had a different take. He called the plan 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.
Gorman further wrote that the pair’s representatives on the trust — which include none other than William Barr, former attorney general under US presidents George H.W. Bush and Donald Trump — “demonstrated a dishonesty of purpose and motive”. One newly appointed representative was singled out for apparently knowing sod all about the family and trust, with Gorman accusing him of engaging in research no more thorough than “Google searches and watching YouTube videos about the Murdochs (or the fictional family in the show Succession)”.
Buzzy lawyers
Murdoch the elder’s lawyer Adam Streisand has said they were disappointed by the decision and would appeal. Streisand has a real showbiz vibe, noting on his website that, in addition to litigation, he is active in “authoring probate law, including legislation he drafted at the request of the Marilyn Monroe estate” (italics mine) and proudly quoting his own personal media coverage like he’s his own movie poster:
“If you’ve seen it on HBO’s Succession, Adam Streisand has litigated it (and much more) in real life.” Los Angeles Business Journal.
“Streisand was the lawyer who … rescued both local NBA teams.” Los Angeles Times.
The American Lawyer says he is “a veteran of battles over the estates of Marlon Brando and Ray Charles”.
“Run, don’t walk to catch this guy’s litigation … Fun … Four stars!” (Okay, we made that last one up.)
Succession, always Succession
Back during the Dominion case, Semafor’s Max Tani found Rupert’s email, tried his luck and was rewarded with a couple of polite and curt answers. Among them was Rupert’s insistence he’d never seen the sprawling media dynasty series Succession.
And yet, it comes up so much in the family’s and companies’ correspondence. There was the claim in Vanity Fair last year, for example, that among the terms of settlement in Murdoch’s divorce from model Jerry Hall was the requirement that “Hall couldn’t give story ideas to the writers on Succession“.
Further, the Nevada proceedings revealed that the Murdoch kids started discussing a PR strategy for Rupert’s eventual death in April 2023, inspired by the then recent Succession episode (SPOILER ALERT) in which fictional patriarch Logan Roy suddenly dies, leaving, as the commissioner wrote, “his family and business in chaos”.
Attempting to avoid any life imitating art, Elisabeth’s representative to the trust, Mark Devereux, swiftly wrote a “Succession memo”.
Have something to say about this article? Write to us at letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication in Crikey’s Your Say. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
