Prince William received ‘very large sum of money’ in phone-hacking settlement: court documents

Prince William quietly accepted a “substantial sum of money” in a 2020 settlement with Rupert Murdoch’s British newspaper media empire for phone hacking, according to court documents released Tuesday in one of his brother’s lawsuits.

Prince Harry’s lawyers announced the unspecified payment in a summary of arguments on why Harry’s lawsuit against the now-defunct publishers The Sun and News of the World should not be thrown out. The lawsuit alleges that the newspaper illegally gathered information in a scandal that spanned two decades.

News Group Newspapers (NGN), which is owned by Murdoch, has argued that a High Court judge should throw out the phone hacking lawsuit by Prince Harry and actor Hugh Grant because the claim is too late.

But Harry, the Duke of Sussex, said he could not bring the case because of a “confidentiality agreement” between the royal family and the newspaper demanding a settlement and an apology. The deal, which the prince said was given to him by the late Queen Elizabeth, would prevent future court proceedings from the royal family.

The publisher denies any confidentiality agreement.

Agreement on ‘tampongate’

Harry said the reason for the confidentiality agreement reached with senior executives at News Group Newspapers was to avoid putting members of the royal family on the witness stand to reveal voicemails intercepted by journalists.

Harry referred to the incident known as “tampongate”, in which recordings were leaked of an intimate conversation in which his father, now King Charles, spoke to his lover, now Queen Camilla, comparing herself to a tampon.

“The institution is very nervous about this and wants to avoid all the reputational damage it suffered in 1993 when The Sun and other tabloids illegally obtained and published details of an intimate telephone conversation that took place between my father and my stepmother in 1989, when she still married to my mother,” Harry said in a witness statement.

Harry said he would bring a lawsuit first if there was no such agreement. He began pushing for a resolution in 2017 but said he had “enough” after publishers “filibustered.” He filed suit in 2019.

An unknown amount

Court papers say William, Prince of Wales and heir to the throne, later settled for an undisclosed sum.

“It is important to remember that responding to this offer of NGN to prevent their claims from being judged, [Harry] must disclose the details of this secret agreement, as well as the fact that his brother, Prince William, has recently settled his claim against NGN behind the scenes,” wrote lawyer David Sherborne. “It is very used. by [Harry] as a ‘shield, not a sword’ against NGN attacks.”

The lawsuit is one of several that Harry has made in his fight against British newspapers. Two other suits involving phone hacking, including a case against the publisher of The Mirror which will go to trial next month – three days after Charles’ coronation. Harry is expected to testify in the case in June.

News Group Newspapers argued that Harry did not deserve an exception to the six-year time limit for bringing legal action because he was aware of phone hacking by the News of the World.

In fact, former News of the World reporter royal Clive Goodman and hired private investigator, Glenn Mulcaire, were prosecuted and sentenced to prison for their role in intercepting voicemails.

Goodman apologized in court to Harry, William and his father, then Prince Charles, in 2006. The newspaper apologized to Harry and others, NGN lawyer Anthony Hudson said in court papers.

other economic payouts

News of the World was closed in 2011, after it was revealed that there was a phone hacking scandal beyond the Royal Family, politicians and celebrities and intercepted messages from murdered girls, relatives of deceased British soldiers and bombing victims.

The collapse of News of the World and related litigation cost Murdoch’s British publishing business more than one billion pounds ($1.6 billion Cdn), according to a review of business filings by Press Gazette, a British media trade publication.

The Press Gazette noted in a 2021 article that the phone hacking case and related costs in 2020 – the year William was allegedly paid – cost NGN 80 million pounds ($133 million Cdn).

Last week, Murdoch’s Fox News agreed to pay more than $787 million US to settle a lawsuit with Dominion Voting Systems for spreading false claims after the 2020 US presidential election.