Can biz family trusts ensure smooth succession? Answer lies with Tolstoy

As business families grow larger with the addition of sons and daughters and sons-in-law and daughters-in-law, they drift away and live in their own separate houses

Last week, the Supreme Court appointed two retired judges as mediators between Lalit Modi and his mother, Bina. Lalit, son of indu­strialist K K Modi, is better kno­wn as the man behind the Indian Premier League of cricket. He and his mother have been at loggerheads since Modi Sen­ior’s death in November 2019.

It is a messy affair. Bina and her other two children, Charu and Samir, are on one side and Lalit on the other. Lalit had started arbitration proceedings in Singapore. Bina filed a lawsuit in India to stop the arbitration. The route to mediation came through the