Prince Harry, Elton John and More Ordered to Pay Initial $13 Million to Daily Mail Publisher After Losing Privacy Case

Prince Harry looks like he might be returning to the U.K. with a sizeable bill to pay.

The prince is among a group of seven high-profile figures — including Elton John and Liz Hurley — who have been ordered to pay an initial £9.54 million ($13 million) in legal costs to the publisher of the Daily Mail after losing their privacy case against the company. They have seven days to make the payment.

The publisher is seeking a total costs order of £34.4 million. Judge Justice Nicklin has yet to conclude if the group will be liable for the full amount, calling it “excessive,” but on Friday he ruled costs should be calculated on an indemnity basis and refused to cap the sum, saying to do so would risk “unfairness.”

The group had sued Associated Newspapers over allegations of unlawful information gathering. The case was dismissed in full last month after Justice Nicklin said they had failed to prove the claims. “In significant respects the case shifted from the pleaded allegation of lies to broader criticisms of Associated’s inquiries, disclosure and corporate response to the Leveson Inquiry,” he said in his 436-page judgment. “This is not how allegations of this seriousness should be advanced.”

The news comes just days after Prince Harry and Meghan Markle announced that they were planning to return to the U.K. imminently along with their two children.

Among those ordered to pay the initial £9.54 million alongside Harry, John and Hurley are John’s husband David Furnish, Simon Hughes, Sadie Frost and Baroness Doreen Lawrence. According to the BBC, Associated Newspapers had asked for in excess of £9.9 million as an interim payment, ahead of future hearings to decide total legal costs, while the group’s lawyers argued for £7.9 million.

The trial saw dozens of witnesses give evidence, including Price Harry, who flew in from the U.S. to attend in person.

In a joint statement after the judge’s ruling last month, Harry and Lawrence, whose son Stephen was murdered in 1993, said: “We came to Court seeking justice and accountability. But we have received neither. It is a complete and obvious whitewash, but sadly not altogether unexpected.”

In a statement today (per the BBC), Associated called Justice Nicklin’s interim costs order “a devastating critique of an attempt to destroy a newspaper and the reputations of its journalists, editors and executives.”