Prince Harry, Elton John and five other people who sued the publisher of the Daily Mail have been ordered to pay an initial £9.5 million — about $13 million — toward that publisher’s legal costs. London’s High Court issued the order on August 21, 2026, after the group lost its privacy lawsuit against Associated Newspapers Limited earlier this year.
derivative work: Minerva97, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons, 2020
Key facts
- Amount ordered: £9.5 million (about $13 million), an initial installment
- Deadline: 4 p.m., August 28, 2026
- Ordered by: Mr Justice Nicklin, London’s High Court, on August 21, 2026
- Claimants: Prince Harry, Elton John, David Furnish, Elizabeth Hurley, Sadie Frost, Simon Hughes and Baroness Doreen Lawrence
- Defendant: Associated Newspapers Limited, publisher of the Daily Mail, Mail on Sunday and MailOnline
- Underlying case dismissed: July 7, 2026, after a trial that ran from January to March
- Publisher’s total legal costs: more than £34 million
- Appeal deadline: October 2, 2026
What the lawsuit was about
Harry, Elton John, his husband David Furnish, actresses Elizabeth Hurley and Sadie Frost, former MP Simon Hughes, and campaigner Baroness Doreen Lawrence brought the case against Associated Newspapers. They accused journalists at the company of unlawfully gathering information about them — including phone hacking, bugging and the use of private investigators — for stories published between 1997 and 2015.
Justice Nicklin dismissed the claims on July 7, 2026, ruling that the group had failed to prove its allegations. Part of the case had rested on a witness, private investigator Gavin Burrows, whose 2021 statement alleging illegal activity against “possibly thousands” of people fell apart in court — he testified he had never signed it and called it faked. The judge said Burrows’ credibility had been “comprehensively undermined.”
The cost order, explained
The £9.5 million payment is due by 4 p.m. on August 28, 2026, but it is not the final bill. Justice Nicklin described it as only an initial installment, with the total amount the group must ultimately pay to be worked out at further hearings. Associated Newspapers told the court its own legal costs for the case topped £34 million — roughly £25 million more than what has been ordered so far, and the claimants could be on the hook for that difference if the publisher pursues the rest of its costs. No court has set a final figure yet, and no source has broken down what each of the seven claimants personally owes.
In the costs ruling, Nicklin called the case “speculative and substantially inferential” and lacking “a proper evidential foundation,” saying the litigation had been conducted “unreasonable to a high degree.” That finding let him order most of the costs assessed on an “indemnity basis” — a standard that works in the publisher’s favor, letting Associated Newspapers recover its legal costs without having to prove they were reasonable or proportionate. That makes the bill much harder for the claimants to challenge, though it does not by itself decide the final amount they will owe.
Simon Hughes said afterward that he was “disappointed and surprised” the publisher’s recoverable costs weren’t capped. The claimants do have some insurance; ABC13 and The Hollywood Reporter reported it covers roughly half of what they could ultimately owe, though the specifics haven’t been made public.
A separate case against a different publisher
This case is separate from one Harry already won, against a different tabloid publisher. In late 2023, a British court found he had been a victim of phone hacking by Mirror Group Newspapers, the Daily Mirror’s publisher — not Associated Newspapers — and awarded him £140,600 in damages, with a separate costs settlement following in 2024.
Reactions
Neither Harry nor Elton John has commented publicly on the August 21 costs order specifically. After the July verdict, Harry and Baroness Lawrence issued a joint statement calling the ruling “a complete and obvious whitewash,” saying, “We came to court seeking justice and accountability. But we have received neither.” Associated Newspapers welcomed this month’s costs decision, calling it “an overwhelming victory for the Daily Mail and its journalists, and for a free press generally.”
What happens next
The claimants have until October 2, 2026, to seek permission to appeal the underlying July judgment. No decision on whether they will has been reported.