Prince Harry, Elton John and other celebrities hit with initial $13 million bill after losing case against UK tabloid

By Issy Ronald, Lauren Said-Moorhouse, CNN

London (CNN) — Prince Harry and six other high-profile figures will have to make an initial payment of £9.5 million ($13 million) toward the legal costs of a British tabloid publisher after losing a high-stakes case against them last month, a UK High Court judge ruled Friday.

The group – which also includes Elton John and his husband, David Furnish – lost a case against the publisher of the Daily Mail over allegations of unlawful information gathering for stories published between 1997 and 2015, and now faces a multimillion dollar bill.

This figure, which must be paid to Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) by 4 p.m. on August 28, is only an initial sum and not the full total the group will eventually pay, the court said in its ruling.

Unusually, the ruling does not require the publisher to prove that its claim for costs is reasonable; instead, it will fall to the claimants to argue their case if they believe it is not.

Explaining the reasons for this, the court said the claimants’ case had been made “outside the ordinary and reasonable conduct of civil proceedings.”

In particular, judge Matthew Nicklin criticized the group for building a case “on an unjustifiably wide canvas,” even as he acknowledged some of their points “had substance.”

However, the court said the ruling was “not a blank check” for ANL. In July, the publisher estimated its legal costs to be £34.5 million ($47 million), which the court said was “exceptionally high.”

Still, the court declined to impose a cap on the costs ANL could claim, saying that a more detailed assessment process involving a specialist judge could better settle any dispute.

“The consequences are significant,” Iain Wilson, managing partner at the law firm Brett Wilson, said in a statement to CNN. “The Mail can now seek costs well above the court-approved budget and the £16m insurance cap,” he said, referencing the group’s insurance policy.

“While it is unlikely the Mail will recover its full £34.5 million claim … any award exceeding £16m must be paid by the claimants personally.”

ANL welcomed the ruling, saying it was an “overwhelming victory for the Mail.”

A long-running case

Campaigner Doreen Lawrence, actresses Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost, and former politician Simon Hughes were also among the high-profile claimants. Hughes said he was disappointed by the ruling and was considering whether to appeal the costs judgement, according to PA Media.

The group alleged that ANL had engaged in a number of illegal activities, including that it tasked private investigators to engage in voicemail interception, phone tapping and “blagging” of sensitive private records through deception.

All these claims were dismissed by Nicklin in July. He ruled that the claimants had not proved the information used by ANL for its stories had been obtained unlawfully.

“The court rejected the argument that, simply because information was private, and because Associated could not positively explain how it had been sourced, the relevant article must have been unlawfully sourced,” Nicklin wrote in the summary of his ruling.

Harry returned to the UK to give evidence in the trial earlier this year, becoming visibly emotional at one point as he said the Mail titles had “made my wife’s life an absolute misery.” His specific claims were based on 14 articles published between 2001 and 2013 which his lawyers said had caused him “great distress” and had “no meritorious public interest.”

When the High Court’s judgment was released in July, Harry described the decision as a “whitewash.” ANL, meanwhile, called the ruling an “overwhelming victory for the Daily Mail and its journalists.”

Harry’s turbulent relationship with the British tabloid press has been well documented, and he has cited it as one of the reasons for his and his wife’s move to the US six years ago.

His case against ANL was the third major lawsuit he has brought against several British tabloid outlets in recent years, after successful legal challenges against Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers and Mirror Group Newspapers.

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