Prince Harry's Lawsuits Are Losing Momentum

Prince Harry's legal challenges are slowing down with an end to the "era of the lawsuit" potentially in sight for the royal, according to a new episode of Newsweek's The Royal Report podcast.

Since 2019, Harry has filed several high-powered lawsuits against media conglomerates, picture agencies and the U.K. government, with varying degrees of success.

In 2019 and 2020, the royal and wife Meghan Markle settled a number of lawsuits with photo agencies that took photos of the couple's private homes and son, Prince Archie.

In 2023, Harry was successful in winning damages and a settlement from Mirror Group Newspapers (MGN), publishers of the Daily Mirror tabloid in Britain, over historic claims of unlawful information gathering. This was a major win for the royal who is suing two other tabloid publishers on similar grounds.

Though buoyed by the MGN win and further boosts in his other tabloid lawsuits, he has suffered some legal blows.

In January 2024, Harry abandoned a libel lawsuit against the publishers of The Mail on Sunday newspaper, shortly followed by a judge's ruling that the U.K. government committee that removed his full-time state-funded police protection did so legally. Harry's lawyers have said they will appeal this decision.

Now, over a year since the prince filed his last major lawsuit, Newsweek's chief royal correspondent, Jack Royston, has told Royal Report listeners that Harry could be taming his desire for litigation.

"It seems to me that it's been a long time since Harry filed a new lawsuit, and I kind of feel like he might have had enough of it after some of them started going south," Royston said.

"Because there was a point at which he had a pretty much unblemished record and he probably did feel like he was on a winning streak and everything was coming back his way. Now that's no longer the case," Royston added.

"I wouldn't be surprised if he is actually just working his way through these existing cases and we will see an end to the era of the lawsuit coming around the corner," he said. "In fact, I've been saying this for some time now. We shall see."

Despite this, Royston noted that the prince's appeal of the judge's ruling in the security lawsuit shows he's not totally giving up the fight just yet.

"The appeal kind of rocked that boat a little bit," Royston said. "I wasn't expecting him to... He also has a massive case in the pipeline, which is his phone-hacking, wiretapping lawsuit against The Mail on Sunday and the Daily Mail. Now, if he wins that, he might be on a high again and suddenly feel like actually it was all worth it."

Newsweek approached representatives of Prince Harry via email for comment.

Prince Harry's Current Lawsuits

Harry has two pending lawsuits and one proposed appeal.

Associated Newspapers Limited

Harry is suing Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), publishers of the Daily Mail and The Mail on Sunday, over allegations of historic unlawful information gathering. ANL has denied the claims.

In 2023, a judge ruled that Harry could take his case (filed with several other high-profile public figures) to trial, despite it being filed after a limitation period. No date yet has been set for the trial, but reports suggest hearings could take place in 2024.

News Group Newspapers

Harry is also suing News Group Newspapers (NGN), publishers of The Sun newspaper, over allegations of historic unlawful information gathering. NGN has denied a number of the claims made.

In 2023, a judge ruled that Harry could proceed to trial with part of his claim, set to take place in 2025.

Home Office Appeal

Prince Harry has filed two lawsuits against the U.K. government since the Home Office's RAVEC committee (Executive Committee for the Protection of Royalty and Public Figures) took the decision in 2020 to remove his full-time, state-funded police protection when he stepped down as a working royal.

In the first, Harry requested a judicial review over the decision that he couldn't privately pay for Metropolitan Police protection. In May 2023, a judge ruled that no such review would take place and that private individuals could not pay for police protection

The second saw the prince request a judicial review of the RAVEC committee's decision to strip him of his full-time police protection. The royal's legal team argued that the committee acted unlawfully in not allowing the prince to make representations to it before taking their decision, nor did they inform him of who was on the committee (a member of which was a senior aide to Queen Elizabeth II). In February 2024, a judge ruled that the committee acted legally and dismissed the prince's request.

Harry's lawyers have said they will appeal this decision.

James Crawford-Smith is Newsweek's royal reporter, based in London. You can find him on X (formerly Twitter) at @jrcrawfordsmith and read his stories on Newsweek's The Royals Facebook page.

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