By Sara Sultan I SCN NEWS
LONDON — Prince Harry, Elton John and five other high-profile figures were ordered on Friday to pay £9.54 million ($13 million) towards the legal costs of the Daily Mail's publisher after losing their privacy lawsuit, with the final bill potentially rising substantially as the financial consequences of their failed case continue to unfold.
High Court judge Matthew Nicklin ordered the seven claimants to make the interim payment to Associated Newspapers Limited within seven days. The group also includes filmmaker David Furnish, actors Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost, campaigner Baroness Doreen Lawrence and former lawmaker Simon Hughes. The payment represents only the first part of the publisher's costs rather than a final settlement of what the claimants owe.
The order follows Nicklin's July dismissal of their claims alleging widespread unlawful information gathering by Associated Newspapers, publisher of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday. The claimants had alleged practices including phone hacking and other invasions of privacy, but the judge concluded that the case relied heavily on speculation and inference and lacked sufficient evidence to establish the alleged wrongdoing. Associated Newspapers had consistently denied the allegations.
Friday's ruling makes the financial scale of that defeat clearer. Associated Newspapers has put its total legal costs at approximately £34.5 million, according to Reuters, meaning the £9.54 million ordered immediately represents less than a third of the amount the publisher says it spent defending the litigation. The final recoverable figure will be determined through the costs process and does not automatically equal the publisher's entire claimed expenditure.
The claimants also face a potentially significant insurance gap. Reuters reported that their legal-expenses insurance covers approximately £16 million, leaving the possibility that millions of pounds in additional costs could ultimately have to be met beyond the available insurance coverage, depending on the final assessment.
Nicklin also ruled that costs should be assessed on an indemnity basis, an important legal consequence of the defeat. Under that approach, disputes over whether particular costs were reasonably incurred are generally resolved more favourably toward the party receiving the costs than under the standard basis normally used by English courts. The judge criticized aspects of the claimants' conduct in pursuing allegations that he concluded were inadequately supported.
The claimants had argued that Associated Newspapers' costs were exceptionally high and maintained that they had brought the proceedings in good faith. The publisher, meanwhile, accused them of pursuing serious allegations without adequate evidential foundations and said their approach had substantially increased the expense of defending the case.
The ruling represents a significant setback for Harry's wider legal campaign against Britain's tabloid press, but it should not be interpreted as meaning that all of his media litigation has failed. Harry previously secured a judgment against Mirror Group Newspapers in a separate phone-hacking case and later settled remaining claims, while another dispute involving News Group Newspapers ended with an apology and settlement. The Associated Newspapers case was legally separate and produced a sharply different result.
That distinction is important because Friday's costs order concerns the seven claimants' unsuccessful allegations against Associated Newspapers specifically, rather than a judicial finding about the British press as a whole. The court rejected the evidence advanced in this case, and the substantial costs order follows directly from that defeat.
Harry and the other claimants still have until October 2 to decide whether to seek an appeal, AP reported. An appeal could extend a legal battle that began in 2022 and has already generated tens of millions of pounds in combined litigation expenses.
Associated Newspapers described the outcome as a major victory for its journalism. Harry and Lawrence had previously criticized the July judgment, while lawyers for the claimants have challenged the scale of the publisher's claimed costs. Those competing positions mean the litigation may not be entirely finished even though the underlying High Court claims have been dismissed.
The immediate consequence, however, is no longer theoretical. The seven claimants must now transfer £9.54 million by August 28, while the court process continues to determine how much more of Associated Newspapers' approximately £34.5 million defence bill they may ultimately be required to cover.
For Harry, the ruling marks an unusually costly reversal in a years-long campaign against sections of Britain's tabloid media. The most significant number is therefore not necessarily the £9.54 million headline figure: that is only the initial payment, while the much larger battle over the final legal bill remains unresolved.
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The £9.54 million is not the final bill. Associated Newspapers says defending the case cost about £34.5 million, while the claimants reportedly have around £16 million in insurance coverage. The court also ordered costs on the tougher indemnity basis, increasing the potential financial significance of the defeat.