Prince Harry’s lawyer announced on Wednesday that he had reached a settlement with Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers over accusations of unlawful information gathering — an abrupt end to a case that Harry had cast as a last chance to hold the tabloids to account for years of predatory behavior.
News Group Newspapers offered Harry a “full and unequivocal apology” for hacking his cellphone and intruding into his personal life, and acknowledged “unlawful” conduct by private investigators hired by one of the tabloids, The Sun. It was the first time News Group has admitted wrongdoing involving that paper.
The company also apologized for past intrusions by its journalists into the private life of Harry’s mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, who died in a car accident in Paris in 1997 while being pursued by photographers.
“We acknowledge and apologize for the distress caused to the duke, and the damage inflicted on relationships, friendships and family, and have agreed to pay him substantial damages,” the company said in its statement, referring to Harry by his alternative title, the Duke of Sussex.
The settlement, announced the day after the long-awaited trial was scheduled to begin, spared News Group Newspapers from weeks of damaging testimony about phone hacking and other unlawful methods it used more than a decade ago to ferret out information about Harry and other prominent figures.
It also spared Harry, 40, the younger son of King Charles III, from heavy financial risk, regardless of how he had fared in court. Under English law, Harry would have been required to pay the legal costs of both sides if the court had not awarded him an amount commensurate with what News Group Newspapers offered him in the settlement.
News Group Newspapers did not disclose the amount it had agreed to pay Harry or his fellow claimant, Tom Watson, a former deputy leader of the Labour Party, to whom News Group also offered a “full and unequivocal apology,” but in both cases it said the amounts were “substantial.”
The company apologized to Mr. Watson for “the unwarranted intrusion carried out into his private life during his time in government by The News of the World during the period 2009-2011,” saying that included his “being placed under surveillance in 2009 by journalists at The News of the World and those instructed by them.”
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
