The long-awaited trial in Prince Harry’s lawsuit against Rupert Murdoch’s London tabloids for unlawful gathering of information opened on Tuesday. But it was immediately adjourned amid signs that the prince was weighing a last-minute settlement offer from Mr. Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers.
A lawyer for Harry petitioned the judge for an hour, before asking for yet another delay until 2 p.m. London time. During the break, lawyers huddled in the hallways of the High Court, which swarmed with journalists gathered to cover a trial that was expected to be the last major legal reckoning for victims of the phone hacking scandal that has tarnished Britain’s news media more than a decade ago.
If Harry accepts a settlement, it would spare him heavy financial risk, regardless of how he fares in court. Under English law, he would be required to pay the legal costs of both sides — which could run into the tens of millions of dollars — if the court does not award him an amount commensurate with what News Group Newspapers offered him in a settlement.
For News Group, it would avert weeks of damaging testimony about phone hacking and other unlawful methods used by its journalists to ferret out information about Harry and other prominent figures. News Group, which denies the accusations, has settled similar claims with hundreds of other plaintiffs over the years.
The judge in the case, Timothy Fancourt, granted the adjournment a bit reluctantly, telling lawyers for both sides that he would do so on the grounds that the extra time would be “beneficial” in producing some kind of outcome. There were powerful incentives for both sides to reach an accommodation.
Lawyers for Harry planned to lay out not only a pattern of unlawful behavior, but also what they describe as a systematic scheme to delete emails to cover up the hacking. They questioned why News Group had no plans to call those they claim were most responsible for the coverup: Mr. Murdoch’s younger son, James; Rebekah Brooks, the chief executive of News U.K.; and Will Lewis, a former senior executive at the company who is now the publisher of The Washington Post.
Harry, who was far from the courtroom on Tuesday, has said he expected his legal costs to dwarf any settlement he would receive from the court. But because of his resources and profile as the younger son of King Charles III, he said he had a rare chance to hold the tabloids to account for years of predatory behavior.
“One of the main reasons for seeing this through is accountability because I am the last person that can actually achieve that,” Harry said last month in an interview at The New York Times’s DealBook Summit.
News Group Newspapers did not comment on settlement negotiations. But in a statement last week, the company said “it has made commercial sense” to agree on financial terms with other people who filed suits against The Sun, one of two tabloids owned by Mr. Murdoch, without admitting liability.
Mr. Murdoch closed his other tabloid, The News of the World, in 2011 after the phone-hacking charges erupted into a national scandal. He issued a contrite apology for the conduct of The News of the World, but the company has never admitted wrongdoing by editors and reporters at The Sun.
Harry had been expected to testify in late February, after the court completes what the court blandly calls the “generic case.” In that phase, lawyers for Harry and another plaintiff, Tom Watson, a former deputy leader of the Labour Party, were planning to establish widespread and deeply rooted misconduct by editors and reporters at The Sun, as well as efforts to purge incriminating emails.
News Group has settled with all but two of the original plaintiffs in this case, including the actor Hugh Grant, as well as in cases involving 1,300 other hacking claims. Mr. Grant said in April that he had felt forced to settle, because “even if every allegation is proven in court, I would still be liable for something approaching 10 million pounds in costs. I’m afraid I am shying at that fence.”
Lawyers for Harry, who is also known as the Duke of Sussex, and Mr. Watson, who is a member of the House of Lords, wrote in a summary of their filing, “To put it bluntly, this case is not about money for the duke and Lord Watson.”
“They want findings and accountability in relation to what was done to them, as well as what was done more generally” by News Group and its senior executives “to thousands of victims,” the lawyers wrote.
