Gina Hancock Rinehart, head of Hancock Prospecting and currently the richest person in Australia, has won court approval to settle legal disputes with her children in private.

In a decision issued Tuesday by New South Wales Supreme Court Justice Paul Brereton, Rinehart won a ruling that the lawsuit earlier lodged by daughter Hope and that of her other adult children -- John, Bianca and Ginia -- will have to defer on the private pact that the family had signed in April 2007.

On the strength of that private agreement, no family member will be permitted to publicly sue another member and any misunderstandings will have to be settled in full confidentiality, according to The Age.

Brereton noted on his decision that Rinehart's stature alone, with her wealth estimated to have breached the $10 billion mark as of May this year, serves as a magnet for attention and controversy.

"In the past, the affairs of the family, including such discord, has attracted considerable publicity in the media ... and this is not the first occasion of discord in the family, which has immense wealth, no small part of which resides in the trust," Brereton was quoted by The Australian as saying.

Many of Rinehart's children's grievances concern the Hope Margaret Hancock Trust set up by Lang Hancock, the family's patriarch, before he passed away. The trust listed Rinehart's four children as beneficiaries while the iron ore mogul was named as trustee.

Taking that into consideration, Brereton said "this is and always was a family dispute, about interests in and governance of a family trust," which further convinced him that all legal tussles of the Rinehart clan must remain confidential.

The court added that sensitivity and privacy of the issues on the legal disputes justify the suppression of the case details and far outweigh the public interest that usually attends an open justice procedure.

The decision, Brereton said, applies on all existing family disputes, including the latest filed by Hope Rinehart Welker on Sept. 5.

The court also stressed that the suppression order will be in effect through "the earlier of the vesting date of the trust," or throughout the lifetime of Rinehart, who this year became the first woman richest Australian.