You give away control to a trust for tax benefits and legal protections. If Rupert can claw back control 'to protect the value of the trust’s holdings', I'd be surprised if other family members could not make the same argument. Maybe that is why this was a surprise to them.
I mean that's why there's a "battle", if it was easy, there would be no battle.
i.e. the trust can many times be changed via consent of the beneficiaries, the primary lever that Murdoch has to get beneficiary consent is other forms of assets that are not under said trust (ex: each child get 25% of this asset, without consent that can't change, but if there are many other assets, the benefactor can basically say, if you don't play ball, you won't get anything from the other assets, depending on the size of the other assets, that can be very persuasive).
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[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 40.1 ms ] threadi.e. the trust can many times be changed via consent of the beneficiaries, the primary lever that Murdoch has to get beneficiary consent is other forms of assets that are not under said trust (ex: each child get 25% of this asset, without consent that can't change, but if there are many other assets, the benefactor can basically say, if you don't play ball, you won't get anything from the other assets, depending on the size of the other assets, that can be very persuasive).