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СпутникиРНSpaceXРоскосмосNASAClaimants lost British high court case over allegations of unlawful information gathering
Britain’s Prince Harry, Elton John and other public figures who lost a privacy lawsuit against the publisher of the Daily Mail have been given seven days to pay £9.5 million (€11 million) as the first instalment of a wider legal costs bill that threatens to put a strain on the duke’s finances.
The high court in London on Friday ruled that the losing parties must cover Associated Newspapers’ costs on an “indemnity” basis, a more punitive way of calculating legal expenses than the standard method.
Judge Matthew Nicklin said he was making the costs order in part because serious allegations, including of phone hacking and the bugging of cars and houses, had been “advanced before the evidential foundation for many of them had been established”.
The judge also said it was “regrettable” for the duke of Sussex to have described his earlier judgment, in which he dismissed sweeping claims of unlawful activity at the Mail, as a “complete and obvious whitewash”.
The legal bill, the first stage of which is an interim “payment on account” of £9.5 million to be made by 4pm on August 28th, threatens to outstrip the amount covered by the claimants’ insurance and leave them personally out of pocket.
The final tally is yet to be calculated, but as of last month Associated Newspapers’ legal costs totalled £34 million.
The case was a central part of the prince’s broader legal battle against Britain’s tabloid press and went to trial earlier this year.
But in a 436-page judgment last month, the court found there was a lack of evidence for the allegations made by the public figures, who also included actress Elizabeth Hurley and Doreen Lawrence, the mother of murdered teenager Stephen Lawrence.
In his latest ruling on Friday, the judge said the claimants’ case had left allegations of criminality or grave impropriety “hanging over” Mail journalists and the failure to withdraw them was “unreasonable to a high degree”.
The judge cited several reasons for granting costs on the “indemnity” basis, including “the speculative and substantially inferential character of the claims at their origin”.
However, the judge said the prince’s “whitewash” remarks did not form part of the rationale for his costs order.
At a costs hearing last month, the court heard the claimants have insurance cover for costs from Temple Legal Protection, but only up to a combined total of £16.2 million.
Lawyers for the claimants, led by costs specialist Nicholas Bacon, had said Associated Newspapers’ demand for “indemnity” costs would allow the publisher to “escape ... budgetary constraints” and could leave them with personal liability running into millions of pounds.
The claimants had recognised an interim payment on account would need to be paid but said it should have been capped at £7.9 million.
Bacon described legal costs that Associated Newspapers had incurred during the case as “eye-watering”, adding that the claimants had “conducted themselves honestly and in good faith”.
But Associated Newspapers said in a statement on Friday that the latest judgment was “another overwhelming victory for the Mail and its journalism”.
The company said it was a “devastating critique of an attempt to destroy a newspaper and the reputations of its journalists, editors and executives”.
It emerged this week that the prince is unexpectedly planning to return to the UK from California along with his wife Meghan, the duchess of Sussex, and their two children. – Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2026