Prince Harry braces for eye watering legal bill after Daily Mail defeat
The litigation costs Prince Harry and a group of six other household names will have to pay the Daily Mail’s publisher are set to be decided on Friday after the group lost their high-profile phone-hacking case.
The celebrity group waged a long-running legal battle against Associated Newspapers over allegations of illegal information gathering and phone hacking, but their claims were dismissed in July after an 11-week trial. Editor-in-chief of Associated Newspapers, Paul Dacre, said in a lengthy statement the ruling was “an overwhelming vindication of our journalism”.
The Duke of Sussex, Sir Elton John and his husband, David Furnish, actresses Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost, campaigner Doreen Lawrence, and former Liberal Democrat MP Simon Hughes brought the lawsuit in 2022 claiming serious privacy breaches dating back over 30 years.
A judge said the group of claimants had failed to prove the allegations and dismissed all their claims, noting the evidence “did not prove that the relevant information must have been obtained unlawfully”.
In written submissions to the Court, the lawyers for the Duke of Sussex and the other claimants called the costs racked up by the publisher “eye watering”.
“Given the stakes, the battle over costs will be just as hard fought as the main claim was – and unless there is a settlement, it will not be a quick process. The costs of the Wagatha Christie libel case, which were significantly less, took two years and seven months to resolve,” David Bailey-Vella, chair of the Association of Costs Lawyers said.
Ahead of the trial, the High Court intervened to manage the spiralling costs and approved legal budgets of around £4m per side for the trial alone. However, the costs incurred by the publisher alone are estimated to have come to over £34m, with the final amount expected to be decided on Friday.
The group of claimants took out insurance to cover £16.2m of these costs, but according to Colin Campbell, a costs law consultant at Kain Knight and former costs judge at the Royal Courts of Justice, there is a question over who of the group will be expected to pay.
“If insurance is only covering £16.2m, there will be a shortfall which the claimants may have to pay, which then brings in to play the question of who pays this”, Campbell told Morning Wire.
Campbell said the publisher “will definitely try and pursue Prince Harry” for the payment.
The former costs judge said a final costs assessment will take place if the parties cannot agree on an amount tomorrow, but said this “is very unlikely.”
“There’s so much money being spent, they’ll try and settle it tomorrow,” he said.
‘A lot of critics’ hit out at Prince’s conduct
Associated Newspapers argued the claimants must pay back the costs in full, and at the end of July applied for these to be on an indemnity basis – a potentially larger financial payout.
Campbell said, however, this is “an issue” as it refers to the claimants conduct of the litigation. If the court decides the costs should be awarded based on indemnity, the newspaper must prove the claimants’ conduct was “unreasonable to a high degree” or “out of the norm”, he added.
Campbell said there “were a lot of critics” pointing to Prince Harry and Baroness Lawrence’s conduct throughout the litigation and their claim the case “was a white wash”. However, he said the judge will likely not consider this as the comments were made after the judgement.