Anchorhead said:

From the article:

Lucas ...having set out 'guidelines' for the new film.

When Disney gives someone $4 billion for their product, they take over deciding how that product is handled. All this blather about Lucas being very involved, consulting, talking to the director and writer, etc, etc is just damage control for the TFNers, who have already decided their world has come to an end.

Well 2 out of 4 of those billions were shares of Disney itself which made him (I think) second biggest shareholder.

Anyway I don't see who exactly from Disney was actually "taking over" the new Star Wars project (as you suggest). As far as I know Disney just left it to old LucasFilm producers.

I don't think Lucas is actively involved to a degree he was in OT. But I am quite certain Arndt didn't just start writing screenplay without any basis. And it seems most reasonably that they worked on those story treatments that Lucas wrote. I could be wrong but we are just speculating here anyway.