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A cast of almost 40 public figures have reached settlements with Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers over allegations of unlawful activity, leaving Prince Harry and Labour peer Lord Tom Watson as the only remaining claimants whose cases will go to trial next year.
The High Court in London was told on Friday that there had been a “dramatic reduction” in recent days in the number of outstanding legal claims against the publisher of The Sun for alleged phone hacking and other unlawful activity.
Celebrities including Louise Redknapp and Alfie Allen are among the 39 individuals with whom the company has settled without admission of liability, as well as the politicians Andy Burnham, mayor of Greater Manchester, and Sir Norman Lamb, former Liberal Democrat MP.
However, the court was told that Prince Harry, King Charles III’s younger son who has fought a year-long battle against the UK’s tabloid press, is pressing ahead with his case alongside that of Watson. A civil trial has been scheduled to begin in January and will last up to eight weeks.
The settlements disclosed on Friday follow earlier deals struck by stars including Hugh Grant and mean the vast majority of the phone-hacking claims against News Group Newspapers have ended, more than a decade after the closure of the News of the World tabloid in 2011.
The first legal claims were made against the newspaper, which was owned by NGN alongside The Sun, after it emerged journalists had hacked the voicemail of murdered teenager Milly Dowler.
NGN has been forced to pay out more than £1bn in settlements and legal costs in covering the cases so far. The payments are covered by Murdoch’s US broadcaster Fox under the terms of a separation of News Corp and 21st Century Fox.
NGN in a statement said that the company had “publicly committed to paying financial compensation and since then has paid settlements to those with proper claims”.
The company added: “As we reach the tail-end of the litigation, NGN is drawing a line under the disputed matters. The civil proceedings have been running for more than a decade and deal with events 13 to 28 years ago.
“It is common practice and indeed encouraged in litigation to seek to settle claims outside court where both parties agree without the cost of a trial.”
However, the lawsuit by Prince Harry against the media company is the most high profile by far, after the scandal that prompted a public inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of the press and a police investigation into phone hacking and payments to public officials.
The investigation ended in 2015 but civil lawsuits continued to be lodged by alleged victims of phone hacking.
