A UK High Court judge ordered Prince Harry, Elton John, David Furnish and four other claimants to pay an interim £9.5 million to Associated Newspapers Limited by 4 p.m. on August 28 after the group lost their privacy lawsuit against the publisher of the Daily Mail. The claimants had alleged unlawful information gathering for articles published between 1997 and 2015; Judge Matthew Nicklin dismissed those claims in July, finding they had not proved the information was unlawfully obtained. The court said the claimants’ conduct of the litigation was “outside the ordinary and reasonable conduct of civil proceedings,” and placed the burden on the seven to challenge ANL’s costs rather than requiring ANL to prove them up front. ANL previously estimated its legal costs at £34.5 million, a figure the court called “exceptionally high,” but the judge declined to cap the publisher’s recoverable costs. The court said a more detailed assessment by a specialist costs judge would better resolve disputes over the final sum, and it reiterated that ANL cannot recover costs that are “unreasonable.” Other named claimants include campaigner Doreen Lawrence, actresses Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost, and former politician Simon Hughes.
