Prince Harry and his co-claimants, including Elton John and Elizabeth Hurley, may be required to pay approximately $13.3 million to Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), the publisher of the Daily Mail, following a lost privacy lawsuit. ANL is seeking this interim payment to cover its legal costs incurred during the 2022 case.
In court, ANL's attorney, Anthony White, argued that the high-profile claimants should cover the publication's legal expenses, beginning with an advance payment. The publisher claims to have spent over $45 million on legal fees. However, the claimants, including Prince Harry's legal team, contended that this amount exceeded the approved budget. A submission on behalf of the claimants proposed an advance payment of around $10 million, instead of the requested $13.3 million. They also stated that insurance is in place to cover more than $21 million in legal fees.
The claimants have accepted that their claims were dismissed and that they are responsible for ANL's legal costs on a standard basis. However, they argued that both the interim payment sought and ANL's request for indemnity costs were excessive. Representatives for Prince Harry, Hurley, and John were not immediately available for comment.
The lawsuit, which concluded after an 11-week court battle earlier this month, alleged that ANL unlawfully obtained information about the claimants. Specific accusations included the use of listening devices in vehicles and residences, and the employment of private investigators between the 1990s and 2011. Prince Harry had accused ANL of targeting him through methods such as obtaining flight information and phone records, as well as phone tapping.
However, the claimants were unable to present sufficient evidence to support their accusations, and ANL has vehemently denied the allegations. In a statement following the court's decision, Prince Harry and claimant Baroness Doreen Lawrence described the ruling as "whitewashed," stating, "We came to court seeking justice and accountability." They criticized the judgment for what they perceived as a reversal of previous judicial stances on similar hacking claims and highlighted an inconsistency in how evidence regarding private investigators' unlawful activities was treated.