Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, reached a settlement yesterday with Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers after accusing the company of unlawful gathering of private information. The decision to settle—which includes NGN's first-ever admission of wrongdoing on behalf of The Sun tabloid—concludes a six-year battle and avoids a lengthy court trial.
Prince Harry filed the initial lawsuit in 2019 and vowed to take the case to trial to hold British media accountable for their alleged invasive practices, including hacking phones, hiring private detectives, and using deceptive methods. For years, NGN denied the allegations, which included intrusions into the prince's private life from 1996 to 2011. The apology also admitted to unlawful behavior by The Sun toward his late mother, Princess Diana, who died in 1997 while being pursued by paparazzi.
Murdoch's NGN has previously averted trials with lucrative payoffs in around 1,300 cases, spending over $1.2B on previous claims.
This was, in essence, what Prince Harry had said he wanted: “Truth and accountability” for the phone hacking scandal that shocked the United Kingdom more than a decade ago.
The wide-ranging scandal centered on private investigators who illegally hacked into the voicemails of news subjects and gathered information for Murdoch’s tabloids.
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