Prince Harry settles a case against U.K. tabloid publisher that hacked his phone

Mirror Group Newspapers agrees to pay Prince Harry a substantial sum in costs and damages for phone hacking and privacy invasion.

A British newspaper publisher has agreed to pay Prince Harry a “substantial” sum in costs and damages for invading his privacy with phone hacking and other illegal snooping, Prince Harry’s lawyer said on February 9.

Attorney David Sherborne said Mirror Group Newspapers had agreed to pay Prince Harry legal costs and damages and would make an interim payment of 400,000 pounds ($505,000).

Prince Harry was awarded 140,000 pounds ($177,000) in damages in December after a judge found that phone hacking was “widespread and habitual” at Mirror Group Newspapers in the 1990s, and that executives at the papers covered it up. Judge Timothy Fancourt found that Prince Harry’s phone was hacked “to a modest extent.”

Mirror Group said in a statement that it was "pleased to have reached this agreement, which gives our business further clarity to move forward from events that took place many years ago and for which we have apologized.”

Prince Harry’s case against Mirror Group, which publishes the Daily Mirror and two other tabloids, is one of several that he has launched in a campaign against the British media, which he blames for blighting his life and hounding both his late mother Princess Diana and his wife Meghan.

In June, he became the first senior member of the royal family to testify in court in more than a century during the trial of his case against the Mirror.

Prince Harry, also known as the Duke of Sussex, wasn't in court for Friday’s ruling. He traveled to London from his home in California earlier this week to visit his father King Charles III, who has been diagnosed with cancer. Prince Harry flew back to the U.S. about 24 hours later.