Unlock the Editor’s Digest for free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Lawyers for Prince Harry are in eleventh-hour talks with Rupert Murdoch’s UK tabloid newspaper business to settle claims of illegal information gathering at the publisher, the High Court in London has heard.
The Duke of Sussex had previously insisted that he was determined to go ahead with the case even after other claimants — including Hugh Grant, Sienna Miller and scores of other public figures — accepted offers from Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers to drop their claims.
But on what was set to be the opening day of the trial, Anthony Hudson KC, acting for the publisher, told the High Court that the two sides were engaged in “settlement discussions”.
The younger son of King Charles is the only remaining claimant in the High Court case alongside Labour’s former deputy leader Lord Tom Watson, whose lawyers are also in settlement talks, the court heard.
“Solicitors on both sides, in both claims, have been involved in very intense negotiations over the past few days,” Hudson said. “The reality is we are very close.”
A deal would prevent damaging claims about alleged illegal information gathering at Murdoch’s tabloid The Sun — and a supposed cover-up involving top executives at the company — from being tested in court.
Under the English courts’ settlement system, the claimants face the possibility of millions of pounds in legal costs even if they win. Successful claimants who decline offers to settle can be on the hook for costs not already incurred, if the damages awarded by the judge are lower than the proposed settlement sum.
A cast of high-profile figures including former prime minister Gordon Brown — and the prince himself — are currently due to testify at the trial, which had been scheduled to last several weeks.
The case is set to be the climax of the prince’s campaign against Britain’s tabloid press, which he blames for the death of his mother Diana, Princess of Wales, who was chased by paparazzi photographers before her death in a 1997 car crash in Paris.
News Group Newspapers has previously apologised to victims of voicemail interception at the News of the World, a title it closed in 2011 after it was disclosed that its journalists had hacked the voicemail of murdered teenager Milly Dowler.
However, it has never admitted to any claims against News of the World stablemate The Sun. The prince has complained that illegal practices were widespread at the paper and that over several years it published several articles about him based on them. The company strongly denies the allegations.
The Duke of Sussex’s allegations of mobile phone hacking have been struck out after the judge ruled they were brought too late.
However, the prince has brought other claims of unlawful information gathering, including the use of private investigators. Allegations of mobile voicemail interception are due to be heard in the trial as part of the “generic” case against the company.
Hudson and his opposite number David Sherborne, representing the claimants, repeatedly asked the judge hearing the case to delay the proceedings on Tuesday as both sides tried to reach agreement.
