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Samsung chairman Lee Kun-Hee has won a lawsuit against his brother and sister to keep control of the electronics leviathan.

The victory in a battle over stock ownership means Lee, son of Samsung founder Lee Byung-Chull, will keep $3.7bn (£2.5n) in Sammy shares: a controlling stake in the company.

Lee Kun-Hee's brother Lee Maeng-Hee and sister Lee Sook-Hee sought shares from him in both Samsung Life, an insurance branch of the firm, and Samsung Electronics, the sector that makes the globe's best-selling smartphones. Close relatives of his second-eldest brother Lee Chang-hee also filed a claim against Kun-Hee. According to AP, the court ruled that the 10-year window for making inheritance claims had expired.

Lee Kun-Hee is South Korea's richest man: his personal wealth is $8.3bn and he has control of Samsung through strategic minority shareholdings across Samsung's subsidiaries.

Lee's father Byung-Chull started Samsung in 1938 as a company selling dried fish and vegetables, and moved into electronics in the late 1960s. It went on to produce black-and-white TVs in the 1970s.

Lee Kun-Hee, the third son of Byung-Chull, took over the chairmanship of the company in 1987 after his father died. It was unusual for a younger son to take control, the Wall Street Journal noted, and became a source of family friction. In the 1990s he was responsible for Samsung's shift towards producing more quality products, a move seen as critical to its success.

He resigned in 2008 after he was convicted of tax evasion, but was reinstated following a presidential pardon. His siblings alleged they found out about the "hidden" shares when Lee Kun-Hee had to open his accounts in that 2008 investigation. ®

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