Meghan Markle has been awarded $625,000 in legal costs over her privacy and copyright infringement case against Associated Newspapers.
A British judge ruled Tuesday that the publisher of the Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday should make the “interim payment” to the Duchess of Sussex, 39, as part of a wider judgment ordering the newspaper group to pay 90% of Meghan’s estimated $1.88 million legal expenses.
The judgement follows Meghan’s successful claim against Associated Newspapers for reproducing parts of a handwritten letter she sent her father, Thomas Markle, in February 2019.
Last month Judge Mark Warby ruled that publishing the letter, which was written after Meghan’s royal wedding to Prince Harry in May 2018, was “manifestly excessive and hence unlawful.”
Speaking in a remote hearing at the High Court in London on Tuesday, Warby stated that the decision to award Meghan the interim payment was made, “to reflect what I consider the likely costs reasonably incurred.”
He added that while the calculation was “rough and ready,” it was about as “generous” as Meghan could realistically hope to gain and that he considered the sum “genuinely recoverable.”
While Meghan’s legal papers show that she had initially hoped for an interim payment of $1.04 million, her attorney, Justin Rushbrooke, quickly replied that he had been instructed “in pithy terms” to accept the ruling.
Meghan’s other requests for a front-page apology on the Mail on Sunday and Mail Online, and an order forcing Associated Newspapers to hand over or destroy any copies it has of her father’s letter, will be resolved at a later date.
