Thailand's billionaire Shinawatra family is bracing for a series of high-stakes court decisions starting Friday that could test its political resilience, with the prospect of an early election and prolonged trouble for the country's stuttering economy.

A criminal court in Thailand will on Friday deliver a verdict in a high-profile case of royal insult involving influential former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, the first in a series of upcoming rulings involving the powerful Shinawatra dynasty.