The News
Britain’s Prince Harry settled a lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers (NGN) over allegations of illegal information gathering and destruction of evidence. NGN issued a “full and unequivocal apology,” and will pay substantial damages, though the amount was not released.
Prince Harry’s lawyers alleged that the publisher’s outlets used more than 100 private investigators on 35,000 occasions over 16 years. They also claimed that criminal news gathering occurred at The Sun, as well as the now-defunct News of the World, and involved executives ”going to the very top of the company,” The BBC reported.
The legal settlement is a “hugely dramatic turnaround,” a BBC royal correspondent wrote, after Prince Harry previously stated he wanted to hold NGN accountable for other victims and to have his day in court. NGN has previously paid out over $1.2 billion in out-of-court settlements over a phone hacking scandal.