High Court justice Mark Warby ordered The Mail on Sunday to run a front page statement about Meghan Markle’s legal win against them for copyright infringement.
The British judge said the statement must be at least the same size as the headline they ran regarding the articles that Markle sued them over. The publisher, Associated Newspapers, must also run a statement on their website for at least a week and link to the article reporting Markle’s victory in the case.
The Duchess of Sussex sued the publisher in 2019 for invasion of privacy and copyright infringement after they published large portions of a private letter she wrote to her father, Thomas Markle, after he failed to attend her wedding in 2018. The judge did not say Associated Newspapers had to mention the privacy aspect of the case in the statement.
In February, the judge ruled that Markle has a reasonable expectation of privacy and that the newspaper infringed her copyright.
He said she “had a reasonable expectation that the contents of the letter would remain private,” and publication of the letter was “manifestly excessive and hence unlawful.”
During Friday’s ruling, the judge also made a declaration that the publisher “misused her private information and infringed her copyright.”
At a remote hearing on Tuesday, Associated Newspapers asked to appeal the decision on 10 grounds, but were refused.
The judge said he “did not consider that there is any real prospect that the court of appeal would reach a different conclusion as to the outcome of the claim for misuse of private information, or as to the issues I decided in the copyright claim.”
Markle was granted a summary judgement last month saying that the case was struck and would not have to go to trial. Any future cases would be related to palace aid, Jason Knauf‘s involvement with the letter.
A year ago, Markle and her husband Prince Harry announced that they were stepping back as working royals, citing the negative and racist attention the British media was giving them. The couple declared last month that they were officially finished being working senior royals. They now live in California with their son Archie and are expecting their second child.
