PRINCE HARRY AND Elton John are among the household names that will have to pay more than \u00a39.5 million to the Daily Mail\u2019s publisher in the first round of legal costs after losing their High Court claims.<\/p>\n
The judge described the claims as \u201cspeculative and substantially inferential\u201d.<\/p>\n
The high-profile figures, also including Doreen Lawrence \u2013 the mother of Stephen Lawrence \u2013 sued Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) over allegations of unlawful information-gathering.<\/p>\n
ANL strongly denied the claims, which were heard at an 11-week trial in London earlier this year, with judge Mr Justice Nicklin dismissing all the cases in a judgment on 7 July.<\/p>\n
The cases returned to the High Court for a two-day hearing over costs, where the court was told ANL\u2019s total costs were more than \u00a334 million (\u20ac39.66 million).<\/p>\n
In a judgment today, Mr Justice Nicklin ruled the group of seven must pay \u00a39,544,355 (\u20ac11,133,689) by 28 August as an initial contribution to the publisher\u2019s costs ahead of further hearings to determine the total sum.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cThe claimants and their advisers have been on notice, since the hearing, that this would be the date for payment on account.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr Justice Nicklin also ruled that ANL\u2019s costs should be determined on an indemnity basis, which is more favourable to the publisher in terms of the amount it can recover, aside from where orders had already been made.<\/p>\n
He said in the 44-page ruling that he was granting costs on this stricter basis for several reasons, including \u201cthe speculative and substantially inferential character of the claims at their origin\u201d, the \u201cexceptional breadth\u201d of the cases \u201cand the public presentation of allegations of serious criminality and impropriety which were not ultimately established\u201d.<\/p>\n
He continued that the group are criticised for \u201cthe making and maintenance of very serious allegations against many individuals, the failure to reassess those allegations when the evidence required reassessment, and the continued pursuit of allegations which were unsupported or had ceased to be realistically maintainable\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn my judgment, that conduct was unreasonable to a high degree,\u201d Mr Justice Nicklin added.<\/p>\n
An ANL spokesperson said the ruling was \u201canother overwhelming victory for the Mail and its journalism\u201d.<\/p>\n
They said: \u201cHis judgment is a devastating critique of an attempt to destroy a newspaper and the reputations of its journalists, editors and executives.\u201d<\/p>\n
The spokesperson added: \u201cThe truth is that these outrageous claims should never have been brought. That they were pursued raises disturbing questions about the conduct of elements of the legal profession.\u201d<\/p>\n
The judgment comes after it was made public on Wednesday that Harry and his wife Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex, are moving back to the UK.<\/p>\n
The couple decamped to California more than six years ago amid the Megxit crisis, but will relocate back to the UK later this month to live in a non-royal residence outside London.<\/p>\n
ANL, which also publishes the Mail On Sunday, had asked for more than \u00a39.9 million (\u20ac11.55 million) as an interim payment, while lawyers for the claimants, which also includes David Furnish, Sadie Frost, Liz Hurley and Simon Hughes, said the interim payment should be just over \u00a37.9 million (\u20ac9.22 million).<\/p>\n
Nicholas Bacon KC, for the group, said in written submissions that it could be \u201cvery significant\u201d if the group of seven had to pay ANL\u2019s costs on the stricter indemnity basis and could lead to them being without enough insurance cover.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PRINCE HARRY AND Elton John are among the household names that will have to pay more than \u00a39.5…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":649328,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[191618,274462,9,10,73207,274463,18,8824,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,204489,15,16,5,5092,7,8,160164],"class_list":["post-649327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-anl","tag-associated-newspapers-limited","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-daily-mail","tag-doreen-lawrence","tag-eire","tag-elton-john","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-mail-on-sunday","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-prince-harry","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories","tag-uk-high-court"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117134418684744435","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=649327"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/649327\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/649328"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=649327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=649327"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=649327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}