Prince Harry was ordered to pay £9.5 million after losing a landmark Court case against the Daily Mail publisher, Associated Newspapers over allegations of unlawful information gathering.
The payment must be made by August 28 and represents only an interim contribution towards Associated Newspapers’ legal costs, meaning the final bill could be significantly higher.
Prince Harry brought the case together with Elton John, David Furnish, Elizabeth Hurley, Sadie Frost, former Liberal Democrat politician Simon Hughes and Baroness Doreen Lawrence. They accused Associated Newspapers of widespread unlawful practices, including phone hacking and the use of private investigators to obtain confidential information. Associated Newspapers consistently denied the allegations.
In July, High Court Judge Matthew Nicklin comprehensively dismissed the claims following an 11-week trial, ruling that the claimants had failed to prove that the information published about them had been obtained unlawfully. The Judge said that suspicion and inference were not sufficient to establish their allegations.
The financial consequences of the defeat could now be substantial. Associated Newspapers told the Court that its legal costs had reached approximately £34.5 million, while the claimants are understood to have insurance covering only around £16 million. This potentially leaves millions of pounds to be paid personally by the claimants.
Judge Nicklin was also highly critical of the manner in which the litigation was conducted, describing some of the allegations as resting on “speculative and inferential” foundations and ruling that aspects of the claimants’ conduct were unreasonable to a high degree. He consequently ordered additional costs to be assessed on the more punitive indemnity basis.
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