Harry, Elton hit with initial $13m bill after losing case against UK tabloid

LONDON – Prince Harry and six other high-profile figures will have to create an initial payment of £9.5 million ($13 million) toward the legal costs of a British tabloid publisher after losing a high-stakes case against them last month, a UK High Court judge ruled Friday.

Key points

• Campaigner Doreen Lawrence, actresses Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost, and former politician Simon Hughes were additionally among the high-profile claimants.
• This figure, which must be paid to Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) by 4 p.m.
• "The consequences are significant, " Iain Wilson, managing partner at the law firm Brett Wilson, remarked in an official note to CNN.

In practice, the group – which additionally includes Elton John and his husband, David Furnish – 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. 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 remarked in its ruling. 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. Explaining the reasons for this, the court remarked the claimants' case had been produced "outside the ordinary and reasonable conduct of civil proceedings." In particular, judge Matthew Nicklin criticized the group for building a case "on an unjustifiably wide canvas, " even as he acknowledged some of their points "had substance." The court noted the ruling was "not a blank check" for ANL. In July, the publisher estimated its legal costs to be £34.5 million ($47 million). It the court remarked was "exceptionally high."

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.

"The consequences are significant, " Iain Wilson, managing partner at the law firm Brett Wilson, remarked in an official note to CNN. "The Mail can now seek costs well above the court-approved budget and the £16m insurance cap, " he remarked, referencing the group's insurance policy. "While it is unlikely the Mail will recover its full £34.5 million claim. Any award exceeding £16m must be paid by the claimants personally." ANL welcomed the ruling, saying it was an "overwhelming victory for the Mail."Going forward, any detailed assessment of the costs claim "is going to be a painful (and ironically costly) process and I wouldn't envy any judge's role in deciding a figure, " Andrew Fremlin-Key, a partner specializing in media, reputation and information disputes at international law firm Withers, informed CNN. "ANL will need to justify its costs in detail."

Campaigner Doreen Lawrence, actresses Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost, and former politician Simon Hughes were additionally among the high-profile claimants. Hughes remarked he was disappointed by the ruling and was considering whether to appeal the costs judgement, according to PA Media. 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 "blagging" of sensitive private records through deception. All these claims were dismissed by Nicklin in July. He ruled that the claimants had not proved the information applied by ANL for its stories had been obtained unlawfully. "The 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, " Nicklin wrote in the summary of his ruling.

In short, harry, Elton hit with initial $13m bill after losing case against UK is the central thread here, and readers can expect follow-up reporting as the picture becomes clearer.