‘Making trouble’: Murdoch family’s bitter feud exposed in court documents

Lachlan Murdoch’s former Australian lieutenant was the “driving force” behind his bruising, and ultimately unsuccessful, attempt to wrench control of the family empire from his siblings in a bitter succession clash, unsealed documents from a Nevada courtroom show.

The Nevada probate court’s 96-page ruling, made public last week, confirms Siobhan McKenna, Lachlan’s lieutenant, orchestrated a scheme to change a family trust deed to keep control of the family’s outlets including The Australian and Fox News with her boss.

The court documents show how sibling grievances played out within one of the media’s most powerful and famous dynasties. The court case was the culmination of a three-decade succession battle over the future control of News and Fox Corp, prompted by the advanced age of their now-95-year-old father, Rupert Murdoch.

The genesis of “Project Family Harmony” originated with McKenna, who stopped working for Lachlan last year, and Lachlan Murdoch largely on the “false assumption” that his younger brother was fuelling press speculation about what would happen in the event of their father’s death, they reveal.

The plan was to reorganise the Murdoch Family Trust, which held the crucial voting shares controlling Fox News, The Australian and The Wall Street Journal , among other titles.

Before the machinations, in the event of Murdoch’s death, his four votes would be dissolved, leaving each of his four eldest siblings with one vote each, and Lachlan Murdoch fearing he could be pushed out. The planned reorganisation would leave Lachlan in charge, on the basis that he would best safeguard News Corp’s conservative editorial positioning, but a Nevada court rejected that.

While much of the general contents of the ruling had already been aired widely by the press last year, its publication confirms the details and evidence behind commissioner Edmund Gorman’s ruling for the first time.

It confirms the extent to which each central figure was involved and how the plan was initiated, and failed in its attempt to change the terms of the family trust.