Since breaking into the open in March, the feud had captivated many academic and political onlookers in Washington because of the heavyweight names involved: the Cato Institute, widely cited by both Republicans and Democrats for its libertarian research, pitted against the Koch brothers, two of the country’s biggest financiers of conservative politics.
Charles Koch helped found Cato in 1977, and his family has donated more than $30 million to it over the years. But he and Mr. Crane had a bitter falling-out over management and philosophical differences, and the Kochs had been angling for Mr. Crane’s removal for years.
In March, the Kochs, who held two of the four founding “shareholder” seats on Cato’s board, brought their lawsuits to gain control of the seat of another shareholder who died.
Cato’s other leaders said the Kochs’ gambit, if successful, would make it their “mouthpiece” and give the brothers control of the group’s scholarship to advance a conservative political agenda.
