Was there more to the Newman/Locke merger?

[Fanlady]

I vaguely remember once Victoria found out Ashland was sick (due to a leaked story by Billy) that she started be friending him with a plan to eventually merge Locke with Newman so he would know his legacy was taken care of, of, and I believe eventually Ashland agreed with her but I think it was a plan by Ashland from the beginning, and I bet somewhere deep in that contract, in tiny letters, that states if Ashland were to recover from his illness that the merger can be revised, giving him more power to make decisions or to even dissolve the merger all together.