'Making trouble': Court unseals Murdoch family succession documents

A detailed account of Rupert Murdoch's 2024 battle to amend his "irrevocable" family trust has been revealed in newly unsealed court documents.

Australia Post chair Siobhan McKenna, then a close ally of Lachlan Murdoch, was a "driving force" behind the plan to amend the trust, according to a court ruling.

While the documents have previously been cited in media reports, this is the first time they have been released publicly.

It was in 2024 at an unremarkable courthouse in Reno where members of the Murdoch family gathered to battle it out.

Rupert Murdoch was trying to change his family trust to consolidate control of his media empire into the hands of his eldest son, Lachlan Murdoch, rather than split it equally among his children.

The Nevada court never publicly released its detailed findings or explained why the commissioner ruled against Rupert and Lachlan — until now.

In a 96-page document unsealed overnight, Commissioner Edmund Gorman detailed how the plan to change the trust was a "carefully crafted charade", concluding that Rupert and Lachlan acted in "bad faith" towards Lachlan's siblings — James, Elisabeth and Prudence.

The document had not been previously released, but The New York Times and other outlets had cited the findings in their reporting.

It reveals how the succession battle unfolded in court, as well as the key role Australian media executive and Australia Post chair Siobhan McKenna — previously Lachlan's closest advisor — played in the plans to alter the trust.

In 2025, the family reached a deal that guaranteed Lachlan would retain control of his father's media empire after the elderly patriarch's death, with the other three eldest siblings to each receive more than $US1 billion ($1.52 billion) for their shares in the companies.

But the scars from the deep rift in the family are laid bare in the judgement — a culmination of decades of public bickering and a bitter battle in court.

The original Murdoch trust dates back to 1970, according to the court document, when Rupert elected to create a trust "in an effort to avoid high Australian death taxes".

The succession plan, or lack thereof, was cemented in 1999, after Rupert divorced his second wife Anna Torv.

Then was born the Murdoch Family Trust — an "irrevocable" agreement that stipulated control of the business be equally split between Rupert and his then offspring.