We're splitting hairs here, of course, and a third entity is useful where considerable wealth is involved, so many well-off families, particularly where a number of relatives are involved, will also establish a closely held holding company for the sole purpose of participating in its trusts.
In the example I gave earlier, however, where a person has purchased assets with their own funds and they are held in trust for that person (the settlor) by that person's closely held company (the trustee) for its active company's shareholder (its beneficiary) the only time that tax liability would accrue to the true underlying owner is when that asset is sold - assuming there are capital gains. In other words, the trustee corporation in such private arrangements has practically unlimited licence to deal with funds in whatever manner it chooses.
Given then, as I've shown, that the personal owner, the company's principal management and the shareholder can all be one and the same person, you can see how many possibilities there are in such arrangements and, indeed, how settlor, trustee and beneficiary can be one and the same person.
However, in the event that the true owners of some or all of MillardAir's assets were members of the Millard family, in their own name, but third parties had inserted themselves into this trustee corporate structure in a decision making capacity, the worst thing that could happen would be the winding down of the company, because, while as we know "the business of business is to make money", there are also many situations in which "the business of business is to hide/launder money" or, much more commonly, "the business of business is to enrich its employees at its expense until there's no money left." In other words, some corporations exist for the sole purpose of losing money.
Again, as I said, rats in the cupboard can do a great deal of damage, particularly when third parties enter into the decision making aspect of privately held companies. We understand that things had already begun to go pear shaped during WM's tenure; that DM could not or would not right the ship and was trying to sell off the assets. If OC is involved, this could represent a multi-million dollar problem with even greater ramification than might be readily evident. IMO.
That being said, if DM was carefully set up to take a big fall, it would require one or more very knowledgeable individuals to organize and prepare the ground since the death of WM and possibly even earlier. Hopefully LE is not just spending time building a case against DM and MS but is also continuing to seek out evidence and investigate all possible motives that could have led to the tragic murder of TB regardless of whether DM and MS were involved.
