Prince Harry settles lawsuit with Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers for apology, “substantial damages”

London — Britain’s Prince Harry has settled his lawsuit against the U.K. newspaper group owned by media mogul Rupert Murdoch, News Group Newspapers, his lawyer told CBS News on Wednesday.

The 2019 lawsuit brought by Harry, along with a former senior U.K. lawmaker, saw them sue News Group over alleged unlawful activities carried out by both tabloid journalists and private investigators employed by its newspapers, The Sun, and the no-longer-in-circulation News of the World. It is one of a number of lawsuits Harry has brought against newspapers in Britain.

“NGN offers a full and unequivocal apology to the Duke of Sussex for the serious intrusion by The Sun between 1996 and 2011 into his private life, including incidents of unlawful activities carried out by private investigators working for The Sun,” the media company said in a statement read out in court Wednesday. The statement also included an apology for the activities of journalists and private investigators working for the News of the World.

“NGN further apologizes to the Duke for the impact on him of the extensive coverage and serious intrusion into his private life as well as the private life of Diana, Princess of Wales, his late mother, in particular during his younger years. 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 statement said.

News Group has faced numerous lawsuits over allegations of phone hacking and illegal information gathering, and it has settled more that 1,300 involving politicians and celebrities. It has always denied, however, that The Sun newspaper was involved in any illegal activities, or that senior figures were aware of anything illegal and tried to cover it up.

Harry had previously said he wanted to go to trial to get to the truth, rather than to get a payout, after other claimants settled out of court.

In court documents that emerged in 2023, Prince Harry claimed that his own brother, heir to the British throne Prince William, quietly received “a very large sum of money” in a 2020 phone hacking settlement with Murdoch’s U.K. newspaper group.

“After endless resistance, denials and legal battles by News Group Newspapers, including spending more than a billion pounds in payouts and in legal costs (as well as paying-off those in the know) to prevent the full picture from coming out, News UK is finally held to account for its illegal actions and its blatant disregard for the law,” said a statement read outside the court Wednesday on behalf of Prince Harry and the British lawmaker who brought the suit with him. “The truth that has now been exposed is that NGN unlawfully engaged more than 100 private investigators over at least 16 years on more than 35,000 occasions. This happened as much at The Sun as it did at the News of the World, with the knowledge of all the Editors and executives, going to the very top of the company.”

On Tuesday, Emma Jones, a board member of the advocacy group Hacked Off, which has worked with Harry on his lawsuit, said proceedings had been scheduled to resume that morning, but that both sides had appealed for extra time as the settlement talks were underway.  

Jones said a “huge amount of money is going to be passing hands,” but she said she did not know the exact amount.

She said Harry also wanted “some sort of admission… that implicates NGN (News Group). An admission, in a way, of what went on,” Jones said.

“He doesn’t want to just walk away from this with an apology. He wants something tangible that he can say well, you know, ‘I at least have this. I proved my point,'” Jones said as negotiations continued Tuesday.