MEGHAN Markle has agreed to pay £67,000 in legal costs after losing the first round of her explosive privacy case.
The Duchess of Sussex is suing Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL) over an article which reproduced parts of a handwritten letter sent by her to her dad Thomas Markle in August 2018.
ANL, publisher of the Mail on Sunday and MailOnline, won the first skirmish in the legal action on May 1, when Mr Justice Warby struck out parts of Meghan’s claim.
This included allegations that the publisher acted “dishonestly” by leaving out certain passages of the letter.
Court papers now show Meghan, 38, has agreed to pay ANL’s £67,888 costs for that hearing in full.
The duchess is now awaiting a High Court ruling on a bid to keep secret the identities of five friends who gave an anonymous interview to a US magazine in her legal action against ANL.
LEGAL FEES
Meghan’s lawyers have applied for the five friends who gave an interview to People magazine to remain anonymous.
In an article published by People in February of last year, the friends spoke out against the bullying Meghan said she has faced, and have only been identified in confidential court documents.
The duchess says her friends gave the interview without her knowledge, and denies a claim made by ANL that she “caused or permitted” the People article to be published.
Her legal team attended the High Court in London on Wednesday for a preliminary hearing before Mr Justice Warby in a bid to keep the identities of the friends secret.
Lawyers for ANL are resisting the application, claiming the duchess’s friends brought the letter sent by her father into the public domain when it was referred to for the first time in the People interview.
In court documents for the hearing, Meghan’s lawyers argued that the friends – referred to as A to E – have a right to anonymity both as confidential journalistic sources and under their own privacy rights.
Justin Rushbrooke QC, representing the duchess, said in written submissions to the court: “To force the claimant, as the defendant urges this court to do, to disclose their identities to the public at this stage would be to exact an unacceptably high price for pursuing her claim for invasion of privacy against the defendant in respect of its disclosure of the letter.
“On her case, which will be tried in due course, the defendant has been guilty of a flagrant and unjustified intrusion into her private and family life.
“Given the close factual nexus between the letter and the events leading up to the defendant’s decision to publish its contents, it would be a cruel irony were she required to pay that price before her claim has even been determined.”
Mr Rushbrooke said that the publisher had made the interviews with People relevant to the case and had “forced” the duchess to identify the names of the five friends in a court document.
Meghan’s lawyers also argue that ANL has “already demonstrated a willingness to publish articles” based on the contents of court documents.
Mr Rushbrooke added: “There can be little doubt that, in addition to defending this case through the courts, the defendant is seeking to maximise the publicity surrounding this case, which it has repeatedly dubbed ‘the trial of the century’.”
The barrister said “there is ample evidence before the court” to support his client’s application to maintain the anonymity of her five friends.
In a witness statement submitted earlier in July as part of the application, Meghan said: “Each of these women is a private citizen, young mother, and each has a basic right to privacy.
MEG LOSES FIRST ROUND
“Both the MoS and the court system have their names on a confidential schedule, but for the MoS to expose them in the public domain for no other reason than clickbait and commercial gain is vicious and poses a threat to their emotional and mental wellbeing.
“The MoS is playing a media game with real lives.”
Mr Justice Warby said he will give his decision on the duchess’s application in writing at a later date.
Meghan is suing ANL over five articles, two in the MoS and three on MailOnline, which were published in February 2019 and reproduced parts of a handwritten letter she sent to her father in August 2018.
The headline on the article read: “Revealed: The letter showing true tragedy of Meghan’s rift with a father she says has ‘broken her heart into a million pieces’.”
The duchess is seeking damages from ANL for alleged misuse of private information, copyright infringement and breach of the Data Protection Act.
ANL wholly denies the allegations, particularly the duchess’s claim that the letter was edited in any way that changed its meaning, and says it will hotly contest the case.
