Actor Hugh Grant has settled a privacy case against the publisher of the Sun newspaper.
The star claimed journalists used private investigators to tap his phone and burgle his house, his lawyer said in court documents on Wednesday. Grant, alongside Prince Harry, was suing News Group Newspapers (NGN) for alleged widespread unlawful information gathering.
The terms of the settlement have not been made public. In a statement posted on Twitter, Grant said NGN was “offering me an enormous sum of money to keep this matter out of court”.
“I don't want to accept this money or settle,” he continued. “I would love to see all the allegations that they deny tested in court.
“But the rules around civil litigation mean that if I proceed to trial and the court awards me damages that are even a penny less than the settlement offer, I would have to pay the legal costs of both sides.
“My lawyers tell me that that is exactly what would most likely happen here. Rupert Murdoch's lawyers are very expensive. So even if every allegation is proven in court, I would still be liable for something approaching £10 million in costs. I'm afraid I am shying at that fence.”
The actor added the money had a “stink” about it, and therefore the funds would be “repurposed via groups like Hacked Off into the general campaign to expose the worst excesses of our oligarch-owned press”. Grant's case was one of several cases that were eligible to go to trial at London's High Court in January.
He is best known for films such as Notting Hill, Four Weddings and a Funeral, Love Actually and Paddington 2. He has also been a prominent campaigner on press reform since the phone-hacking scandal emerged more than a decade ago.
Grant previously brought a case against NGN in relation to the now-defunct News of the World tabloid, which was settled in 2012. That came a year after the newspaper was shut down by media mogul Murdoch following a public backlash to hacking revelations.
NGN has rejected allegations of any wrongdoing by staff at the Sun, having settled more than 1,000 cases without making any admission of liability in relation to the paper. It has not yet publicly commented on the latest settlement with Grant.
However, Anthony Hudson KC, representing NGN, acknowledged to a judge at a hearing on Wednesday that there were “currently 42 extant claims… that follows the recent settlement of Mr Grant's claim”.
NGN had previously unsuccessfully argued that Grant's action should be blocked because he had waited too long to launch it. In 2023, a judge was asked to rule on whether the actor's case should be allowed to proceed because it dates back further than six years, the cut-off point for legal action of this kind in civil courts.
This time limitation has become a major legal battleground in cases against newspapers, because allegations of wrongdoing often go back 30 years. But Grant argued at the time he should be allowed to bring the case now because material he and his lawyers will rely on only came to light in recent years.
