No matter how big your business empire, or how tight your grip on it, you need a will and a succession plan.

This was the sage advice from Nick Jacob, a trust lawyer from Forsters LLP, speaking at the Step Bermuda Conference 2023.

Mr Jacob, called “the godfather of Asian family governance work”, discussed family wars at the event at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Insitute.

He pointed to the example of Dhirubhai Ambani, who built multibillion-dollar conglomerate Reliance Industries in Mumbai, India, with his sons, Mukesh and Anil.

“Mr Ambani did not want the business broken up when he died,” Mr Jacob said. “That is exactly what happened, because he did not do any planning to ensure that was the case. He did not even have a will. When you talk about basic planning, having a will is not rocket science.”

After Mr Ambani’s death in 2002, the brothers feuded for years through press conferences, letters to the Indian prime minister and endless court battles. Their mother, Kokilaben Ambani, brokered a demerger in 2005, which gave Mukesh control of the oil and gas, petrochemicals, refining and manufacturing part of Reliance. Anil took over electricity, telecoms and financial services.

Today, Mukesh Ambani is the richest man in Asia with a $91.4 billion-dollar fortune, and the eleventh richest man in the world. Brother Anil does not place on the Top Ten list, and claims to have sold off much of his assets to pay legal fees.

“Litigation inevitably is destructive,” Mr Jacob said. “The only winners are the lawyers. It is really sad when you think about the damage that does to families.”

He said sometimes the family patriarch will bang his fists on the table, insisting that the family do things his way when he is gone.

“Force will rarely get people to agree,” Mr Jacob said.

He said disputes over the family fortune are rarely actually about money.

“They are about power,” he said. “They’re about respect. They’re about acknowledgement of other people’s skills, and views.”

He also looked at the example of Canadian billionaires Harrison and Wallace McCain, of McCain Family Foods, who have been battling for years over who will inherit the firm they created together.

“They spread the business over different geographical areas,” Mr Jacob said. “But they could not agree on things. Harrison took on roles, but Wallace would get frustrated that Harrison was doing other things not related to the business. Therein lay the seed of discontent.”

Advisers suggested an independent board, but the brothers would not agree to that.

Wallace McCain eventually set up another successful business, Maple Leaf Foods.

Mr Jacob said in these drawn-out legal bloodbaths, the business itself often suffered. As family problems went public, share prices tumbled.

Mr Jacob told a room full of trust professionals that they could help stop these negative situations from happening in a number of ways.

“We can give the next generation a voice, by talking to them,” Mr Jacob said. “Facing up to potential conflict issues before they become real conflicts is absolutely critical.”

He said wealth structuring can cause friction.

“Some people might like the structure and some people may not,” he said. “Getting everybody to buy in to the structuring and to understand why it has been set up is important.“

He said trust professionals have to ensure that the structures they set up are not too complicated to understand.

“We need to think about whether what we might be suggesting is actually real,” he said. “Are the structures going to work for that family, and are they dynamic enough to change in the future?”