Prince Harry will have to pay a share of a steep court bill within a week, a High Court judge ruled on Friday.
The Duke of Sussex, 41, lost a high-profile privacy case against Associated Newspapers, the publisher of the Daily Mail, in July, while he was visiting the UK in July.
Together with a group of claimants, who include Sir Elton John, Elizabeth Hurley and Baroness Doreen Lawrence, Harry will need to cover the paper’s legal costs, which include an initial £9,544,355 to be paid by 28 August.
However, the court is yet to decide how much of Associated’s costs the claimants must ultimately pay, and there will be further hearings to determine the total sum. The group also includes David Furnish, Sadie Frost, Liz Hurley and Sir Simon Hughes.
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Mr Justice Nicklin said: “The claimants and their advisers have been on notice, since the hearing, that this would be the date for payment on account.” He added he was “quite satisfied” that an order for indemnity costs, which are more favourable to the publisher, “should be made in this case”.
Associated previously stated its costs defending the proceedings were £34.5 million, which the court described as “exceptionally high”.
However, the court declined to impose a cap on the amount that they could recover following “careful consideration”.
Harry was told last month that he would need to wait to find out how much he would be paying.
Why are Prince Harry’s court costs so high?
Mr Justice Nicklin said that the legal team’s behaviour during the case was “unreasonable to a high degree”.
The judge also said that a statement issued on behalf of Prince Harry and Baroness Lawrence in July after the judgment – which called the ruling a “whitewash” – was “regrettable”.
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However, this was not part of the decision for indemnity costs as it was only issued by two of the seven claimants.
The judge said in the 44-page ruling that he was granting costs on this stricter basis for several reasons, including “the speculative and substantially inferential character of the claims at their origin”, the “exceptional breadth” of the cases “and the public presentation of allegations of serious criminality and impropriety which were not ultimately established”.
He continued that the group are criticised fo