A major development has occurred in the legal battle between Prince Harry and the Mirror Group Newspapers. The remaining parts of the civil suit, which Prince Harry filed against the MGN-owned newspapers for unlawfully gathering personal details about his life, have finally been settled. This settlement brings an end to a long and arduous legal process.
Key Takeaway
Prince Harry’s landmark civil suit against the Mirror Group Newspapers has been settled, with the publisher ordered to pay substantial damages and legal costs to the Duke of Sussex.
Settlement Details
In a recent hearing at the High Court in London, the Daily Mirror’s publisher was ordered to pay substantial damages and legal costs to the Duke of Sussex. Judge Timothy Fancourt announced that MGN should pay the “generic” costs to those involved in the legal action, emphasizing that justice is only done by awarding the claimants their costs of the generic issues.
Prince Harry’s lawyer, David Sherborne, confirmed the settlement and revealed that the publisher has made an interim payment of $505,500. The final total cost has yet to be assessed. In response to the settlement, an MGN spokesperson expressed their satisfaction with the agreement, stating that it provides clarity for their business to move forward from events that took place many years ago and for which they have apologized.
Background
This settlement follows Judge Fancourt’s ruling in December, which determined that the company had hacked Harry’s phone to a “modest extent,” resulting in an award of about $180,000 in damages to Prince Harry. The ruling found that 15 of the 33 articles published by The Sunday Mirror and another paper contained information illegally gathered by hacking into Harry’s personal phone between 2004 and 2009. Notably, during the trial, Prince Harry testified for seven hours, making him the first senior royal to take the witness stand in centuries in a court of law.
In his 2019 lawsuit, Prince Harry claimed that the intrusions went on for years and also targeted his wife, Meghan Markle, causing them “considerable distress.”
