Every kampung in Malaysia has seen it.
A father passes away. A piece of land is left behind. The children promise to stay united. Everyone cries at the funeral.
Six months later, nobody is speaking to each other.
One sibling claims he sacrificed the most. Another says she was the one who cared for the parents. Someone insists the land was promised to them decades ago. Lawyers are called. Court files pile up.
The family breaks apart.
Now replace the three-acre kebun with billions of ringgit.
The story remains exactly the same.
The only difference is the size of the inheritance.
In recent years, some of Malaysia's wealthiest families have found themselves trapped in the same cycle that ordinary Malaysians know all too well: disputes over money, property, inheritance and control.
The Genting dynasty is perhaps the most visible example today.
A court battle involving the RM1.6 billion estate of the late Lim Siew Kim, daughter of Genting founder Tan Sri Lim Goh Tong, has exposed a bitter dispute between siblings over inheritance. Two daughters are challenging the validity of their mother's final will, while their brother defends it in court. The case has revived memories of earlier legal battles within the Genting family involving trusts, shares and inheritance rights.
Before this, the Genting family had already spent years fighting various court battles involving grandchildren, uncles and family trusts established by the late Lim Goh Tong. At one point, multiple lawsuits were filed before a settlement was eventually reached, only for new disputes to emerge years later.
Then there is the Sapura family.
What began as one of Malaysia's most successful Bumiputera corporate success stories eventually spilled into the courts. Family patriarch Tan Sri Shamsuddin Kadir sought the return of shares and assets worth hundreds of millions from his sons. More recently, the dispute expanded into a battle between brothers over control of Sapura Holdings itself, with arguments over trust, ownership and the future of the family empire.
The NAZA story is another example Malaysians remember well.
After the passing of Tan Sri SM Nasimuddin SM Amin, questions over succession, family businesses and the next generation became the subject of public attention. While much of the family's affairs remain private, the challenges of managing a large family empire after the founder's death have never been easy.
Sarawak has its own version of the same story.
Following the passing of former Sarawak Governor Tun Abdul Taib Mahmud, attention naturally shifted towards the future of the family's enormous business interests. Various reports and discussions have highlighted tensions involving family members and control of major corporate assets associated with the Taib family network.
The names change.
The industries change.
The amount of money changes.
Human nature does not.
There is an old Malay saying: "air dicincang tidak akan putus" — water cannot be cut apart.
It sounds beautiful.
Unfortunately, money has a way of testing even the strongest family bonds.
Perhaps that is the real lesson from all these billionaire family feuds.
Many people spend their entire lives trying to become rich.
Very few spend enough time figuring out how their wealth will be divided after they are gone.
And when that happens, the children often end up fighting over the empire the father spent a lifetime building.
Whether it is a kampung house worth RM100,000 or a corporate empire worth RM10 billion, greed, pride, resentment and old family wounds tend to follow the same script.
The courtroom simply becomes the modern version of the family dining table argument.
As the old proverb goes, where there is honey, there will be ants.
And where there are billions, there will almost certainly be lawyers.
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