On top of losing her court bid to keep details of her family court feud secret, Australia's richest woman, Gina Rinehart, was ordered on Monday by the Court of Appeal to shoulder the legal bills of her three estranged adult children in the amount of $250,000.

It was her three children who requested the Court of Appeal to order their mother to shoulder their costs.

The legal costs arose from a petition by Ms Rinehart to suppress release of the juicy details of family feud as Hope and Bianca Rinehart and John Hancock sought the removal of their mother from heading the family trusted established by the family patriarch, Lang Hancock, due to her alleged gross dishonesty and deceitfulness is the manner she handled the trust.

Ms Rinehart's petition was dismissed by the court in January which led to details of the family battle for wealth published such as long email exchanges between family members with the kids complaining they don't have money for their upkeep.

Besides being ordered to pay for the legal bills of her children, Ms Rinehart was also asked to should the cost of media companies that opposed the suppression orders. In arguing against paying the legal cost, Ms Rinehart said she successfully got a limited stay in January and she was acting reasonably in seeking a repression order while her adult kids and the media acted unreasonably by refusing to follow the suppression order.

However, Chief Justice Tom Bathurst rejected the argument of the world's richest woman.

"The fact remains that the applicants were not successful before this court, and there is no reason why costs should not follow the events," Mr Bathurst wrote in his decision.

It is not only her family which wanted her out of the trust, but also Fairfax Media which refused Ms Rinehart's bid for a director's seat in the company board despite her being the largest shareholder. The move prompted Ms Rinehart to reduce her holdings in Fairfax to 15 per cent from 19 per cent.

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