Judge Matthew Nicklin has ordered Prince Harry and six other high-profile claimants to pay £9.54m towards Associated Newspapers’ legal costs following their failed privacy case.
The interim payment of £9,544,355 must be received by Associated Newspapers by 28 August, after the publisher accumulated nearly £34.5m in legal costs defending the action.
The payment is split between £4.67m of approved budgeted costs and £4.88m of costs incurred before the budget was set.
In a further blow, Nicklin ordered that Associated’s costs be assessed on an indemnity basis, a more favourable arrangement for the publisher that could increase the total it ultimately recovers.
The judge said the way the case had been pursued was “unreasonable to a high degree”, citing the breadth of claims, speculative allegations, and failure to narrow the case as proceedings advanced.
Harry brought the case alongside Sir Elton John and his husband David Furnish, actresses Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost, Baroness Doreen Lawrence, and former Liberal Democrat MP Sir Simon Hughes.
The group accused Associated Newspapers of practices including phone hacking and obtaining private information illegally across a period stretching back decades.
Following an 11-week trial, Nicklin rejected all claims, finding that evidence did not establish that information at the centre of the case had been obtained unlawfully.
Associated Newspapers hailed the original ruling as an “overwhelming victory” for its newspapers and journalists, while Harry subsequently described it as a “complete and obvious whitewash.”
The costs battle then became a second front in the dispute, with Associated telling the court it had incurred costs of £34,481,622.54 by 9 July, far exceeding its approved and subsequently varied figure of £13.3m.
Nicklin described the £34m-plus claim as “exceptionally high” and said it raised “real concerns” over whether all costs had been reasonably incurred.
Associated pushed for an interim payment calculated at 65 per cent of its pre-budget costs, while lawyers for Harry and the other claimants argued for 40 per cent, with Nicklin settling on 60 per cent.
The judgment does not require Harry personally to pay the full £9.54m, as Nicklin ordered the sum as a global payment from all seven claimants with individual allocations to be decided later.
The final bill could rise beyond the £9.54m interim figure after Nicklin rejected an attempt by the claimants to put a ceiling on Associated’s recoverable costs.
Nicklin said the case had been “conceived and pleaded on an unjustifiably wide canvas”, though he stressed he had not found that any individual claimant deliberately advanced a case they knew to be false.
The indemnity costs order is significant because proportionality does not impose the same limits on the amount Associated can recover, though Nicklin stressed it was “not a blank cheque.”
Colin Campbell, a costs law consultant at Kain Knight and former costs judge at the Royal Courts of Justice, previously said Associated would “definitely try and pursue Prince Harry” if there was a shortfall after insurance.
The claimants are understood to have insurance covering around £16m of their exposure to Associated’s legal costs.
The ruling lands as reports emerge that Harry and Meghan are preparing to return to Britain with their two children after six years living in the United States.
No decision has yet been announced on whether Harry and the other claimants intend to appeal last month’s judgment against them.