Several high-profile individuals including Prince Harry must spend more £14 million than they suggested in their legal battle with the Daily Mail publisher, two High Court judges have ruled.
The Duke of Sussex is among a group of people – including Baroness Doreen Lawrence, Sir Elton John and his husband David, actresses Sadie Frost and Liz Hurley, and Sir Simon – who are taking legal action against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) over the misuse of private information.
ANL strongly denies these allegations and is defending legal action.
In a ruling on Friday after a preliminary hearing in November last year, Mr Justice Nicklen and Justice David Cook said the two sides had proposed spending more than £38.8 million on the legal claim combined, with the claimants proposing to spend around £18.7 million.
But Justice Cooke said he and Mr Justice Nicklin had “little difficulty in concluding that such amounts were clearly excessive and therefore disproportionate”.
The pair ruled that the claimants could spend about £4.1 million, and about £4.5 million, in the case.
A trial of the claims could be heard in 2026, with Justice Cook stating that “the anticipated length of trial will be 45 days.”
The claimants accused ANL of carrying out or commissioning illegal activities, such as hiring private investigators to place listening devices inside cars, “Blagging” private records, burglaries on demand and accessing and recording private phone conversations.
The publisher previously told the court that the claims were “full” and “simply repugnant”.
During the hearing last November, Mr Justice Nicklen said his “goal” was to advance the claim to trial, which he said could begin on January 14, 2026.
In a 10-page rulingJudge Cook said the legal claims were “fairly simple”.
“For each of the articles that plaintiffs rely on, they say they were the product of illegal information gathering,” he said. “That is not a precise question.”
“The claimants will succeed or fail to show the proposition. If the relevant claimant fails, that will be the end of the claim in relation to this article.
“If the plaintiff succeeds, the question of remedy will arise and on this issue, the law is clear.”
Judge Cook continued: “This is not to downplay the complexity of the factual issues that may arise in litigation, but it places these claims in the context of the types of litigation that come before the courts.
“The fact that these claimants are well-known, and the litigation is high-profile, does not impact the issues to be resolved.”
“Cost management is not an exercise of reducing parties’ costs to an irreducible minimum but of setting reasonable and proportionate parameters,” he said.
The ruling comes days after Harry settled his claim against Newspapers (NGN), publisher of The Sun and Nownct-Gefunct of the World, where the trial was due to begin.
The Duke and Lord Tom Watson, the former deputy leader of the Labor Party, have taken legal action against the publisher over allegations of illegal information gathering.
On Wednesday, the two sides agreed to settle the claims, with Harry receiving a “full and unequivocal” apology from NGN for “serious intrusion” into The Sun’s private life between 1996 and 2011 that included “incidents of illegal activity,” as well as offered “Substantial damage.”
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