The Duchess of Sussex, Meghan Markle, has won a three-year High Court battle against the tabloid The Mail on Sunday for publishing excerpts of a letter she wrote to her estranged father Thomas Markle, 77, in August 2018.
After more than two years of legal wrangling, the decision had been made. The London High Court, according to Deadline, ordered the UK tabloid to print a front-page apology in February 2019 for invading Meghan Markle's privacy by printing parts of a five-page letter to her father after her wedding to Prince Harry in 2018.
The Deadline futher reported that, “The Duchess of Sussex wins her legal case for copyright infringement against Associated Newspapers for articles published in The Mail on Sunday and posted on Mail Online,” Sunday’s front page notice read.
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“Following a hearing on 19-20 January, 2021, and a further hearing on 5 May, 2021, the Court has given judgment for the Duchess of Sussex on her claim for copyright infringement. The Court found that Associated Newspapers infringed her copyright by publishing extracts of her handwritten letter to her father in The Mail on Sunday and on Mail Online. Financial remedies have been agreed,” the apology continued.
The Court further ordered that the apology be posted on the MailOnline homepage "for a period of one week," along with a link to the entire, official verdict. Along with other printed apologies, Meghan Markle will receive roughly $1.7 million in compensation, which would cover 90 percent of her legal expenditures incurred in her battle with the UK publisher.
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Shortly after the Dec. 2 ruling, Meghan Markle stated, “This is a victory not just for me, but for anyone who has ever felt scared to stand up for what’s right.”
“While this win is precedent setting, what matters most is that we are now collectively brave enough to reshape a tabloid industry that conditions people to be cruel, and profits from the lies and pain that they create,” she said.
