{"id":821141,"date":"2026-08-21T15:50:13","date_gmt":"2026-08-21T15:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/821141\/"},"modified":"2026-08-21T15:50:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-21T15:50:13","slug":"prince-harry-elton-john-and-other-celebrities-hit-with-initial-13-million-bill-after-losing-case-against-uk-tabloid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/821141\/","title":{"rendered":"Prince Harry, Elton John and other celebrities hit with initial $13 million bill after losing case against UK tabloid"},"content":{"rendered":"

London\u00a0\u2014\u00a0\n <\/p>\n

\n Prince Harry<\/a> and six other high-profile figures will have to make an initial payment of \u00a39.5 million ($13 million) toward the legal costs of a British tabloid publisher after losing a high-stakes case<\/a> against them last month, a UK High Court judge ruled Friday.\n <\/p>\n

\n The group \u2013 which also includes Elton John and his husband, David Furnish \u2013 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.\n <\/p>\n

\n 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.\n <\/p>\n

\n 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.\n <\/p>\n

\n Explaining the reasons for this, the court said the claimants\u2019 case had been made \u201coutside the ordinary and reasonable conduct of civil proceedings.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n In particular, judge Matthew Nicklin criticized the group for building a case \u201con an unjustifiably wide canvas,\u201d even as he acknowledged some of their points \u201chad substance.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\n However, the court said the ruling was \u201cnot a blank check\u201d for ANL. In July, the publisher estimated its legal costs to be \u00a334.5 million ($47 million), which the court said was \u201cexceptionally high.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n 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.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe consequences are significant,\u201d Iain Wilson, managing partner at the law firm Brett Wilson, said in a statement to CNN. \u201cThe Mail can now seek costs well above the court-approved budget and the \u00a316m insurance cap,\u201d he said, referencing the group\u2019s insurance policy.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWhile it is unlikely the Mail will recover its full \u00a334.5 million claim \u2026 any award exceeding \u00a316m must be paid by the claimants personally.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n ANL welcomed the ruling, saying it was an \u201coverwhelming victory for the Mail.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n 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.\n <\/p>\n

\n 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 \u201cblagging\u201d of sensitive private records through deception.\n <\/p>\n

\"Actress<\/p>\n

\n 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.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe 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,\u201d Nicklin wrote in the summary of his ruling.\n <\/p>\n

\n 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 \u201cmade my wife\u2019s life an absolute misery.\u201d His specific claims were based on 14 articles published between 2001 and 2013 which his lawyers said had caused him \u201cgreat distress\u201d and had \u201cno meritorious public interest.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\"Britain's<\/p>\n

\n When the High Court\u2019s judgment was released in July, Harry described the decision as a \u201cwhitewash.\u201d ANL, meanwhile, called the ruling an \u201coverwhelming victory for the Daily Mail and its journalists.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Harry\u2019s 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\u2019s move to the US six years ago.\n <\/p>\n

\n 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\u2019s News Group Newspapers and Mirror Group Newspapers.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"London\u00a0\u2014\u00a0 Prince Harry and six other high-profile figures will have to make an initial payment of \u00a39.5 million…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":821142,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,88],"class_list":["post-821141","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821141","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=821141"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/821141\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/821142"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=821141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=821141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=821141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}