This comes as the media face a reckoning for their coverage nationwide. In this case, Harry, 40, alleged the papers had acted illegally to obtain information about him and his family between 1996 and 2011 in a lawsuit that began more than five years ago. NGN admitted that its papers had made a “serious intrusion” by hiring private investigators who were behind the “unlawful activities” that prompted news coverage.

“NGN also offers a full and unequivocal apology to the Duke of Sussex for the phone hacking, surveillance and misuse of private information by journalists and private investigators instructed by them at the News of the World,” the apology read. “We acknowledge and apologise for the distress caused to the Duke, and the damage inflicted on relationships, friendships and family, and have agreed to pay him substantial damages.”

Former lawmaker Tom Watson joined Harry in the lawsuit, alleging a similar intrusion into his private life from 2009 to 2011. NGN acknowledged that News of the World staff had placed Watson under surveillance and paid him damages as a result. News of the World went out of print in 2011 after more than 160 years of publication. Since then, News UK has become NGN’s parent company.

“After endless resistance, denials and legal battles by News Group Newspapers, including spending more than a billion pounds in payouts and in legal costs (as well as paying-off those in the know) to prevent the full picture from coming out, News UK is finally held to account for its illegal actions and its blatant disregard for the law,” Harry and Watson’s attorney David Sherborne said in a statement. “Today, the lies are laid bare. Today, the cover-ups are exposed. And today proves that no one stands above the law.”

Actor Hugh Grant settled two similar lawsuits against the Sun that were centered on accusations of phone tapping, car bugging, and breaking and entering. Grant donated cash from the settlement, as well as an additional payment, to the media reform group Hacked Off, which campaigns for stricter oversight of Britain’s scandal-tainted press.

However, not all complainants against the Sun have been successful, as actor Johnny Depp filed a libel suit against the Sun in 2020 for its reference to the actor as a “wife beater.” U.K. Judge Andrew Nicol ruled in the Sun’s favor, finding that at least 12 of the 14 incidents of domestic violence perpetrated against Amber Heard were “substantially true.”

This comes after ABC News host George Stephanopoulos settled with President Donald Trump in a lawsuit over his comment that Trump was “liable for rape.” The network paid Trump $15 million. In addition to the settlement, ABC News issued a statement of regret at the bottom of an online article that contained the clip of Stephanopoulos’s comment. Trump used the settlement to establish a “presidential foundation and museum to be established by or for Plaintiff, as Presidents of the United States of America have established in the past.”