In a landmark legal development that caps a high-profile privacy battle against one of Britain’s biggest tabloid publishers, the UK High Court has ordered Prince Harry and six other high-profile claimants to hand over an interim payment of £9.5 million ($13 million) to Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), the publisher of the Daily Mail. The ruling came Friday, weeks after the court dismissed the group’s claims of unlawful information gathering and privacy violations.
The group of claimants, which includes music icon Elton John, his husband David Furnish, and well-known actors Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost, brought forward serious allegations against ANL. They accused the tabloid publisher of orchestrating invasive privacy breaches, including bugging their private vehicles and homes, intercepting confidential phone calls, and gaining unauthorized access to sensitive personal data including bank statements and private medical records. ANL has repeatedly and firmly denied every single one of the allegations put forward by the claimants.
After an 11-week trial that dominated headlines and featured emotional testimony from Prince Harry, Justice Matthew Nicklin released his core ruling on July 7, siding entirely with the publisher. In that decision, Nicklin concluded that the claimants had failed to meet the legal standard to prove their pleaded allegations against ANL. Friday’s ruling addressed the contentious issue of trial costs, following a two-hour additional hearing focused on how much the losing claimants would be required to pay.
A formal summary published by the court confirmed that the interim payment of £9,544,355 must be completed by 4:00 pm BST (1500 GMT) on August 28. Court documents noted that ANL has claimed its total legal costs for defending the case reached approximately £34.5 million as of July 9, a figure Justice Nicklin described as “exceptionally high” and “unprecedented.” The judge also acknowledged that the requested £34.5 million total appeared excessive, raising legitimate concerns over whether all of the costs claimed by ANL were reasonably incurred as part of the defense.
Notably, Friday’s ruling does not set the final total amount of costs that the seven claimants will ultimately be required to pay. The court’s ruling clarified that the current hearing only addressed the framework for assessing costs, not the final recoverable amount. If the two sides cannot reach an agreement on the final total, the question will be decided separately by a specialized costs judge at a later date.
In a key decision that increases the financial liability for Prince Harry and the other claimants, Justice Nicklin rejected their request to assess costs on the more lenient standard basis. Instead, he granted ANL’s request for costs to be repaid on the stricter indemnity basis, a ruling that will significantly increase the share of total defense costs the seven claimants are legally required to cover.
The court also established a clear timeline for any potential next steps in the legal battle: claimants must file any request for permission to appeal the July 7 core ruling by October 2. Following the judge’s July decision dismissing their claims, Prince Harry and co-claimant Doreen Lawrence, a prominent anti-racism campaigner, released a joint statement calling the ruling “a complete and obvious whitewash.”