A judge in Britain has ruled against Prince Harry and several other celebrities in a lawsuit that accused the publisher of the Daily Mail of targeting them with unlawful information gathering.

The decision was handed down by a judge in a written statement on Tuesday.

The prince and several other high-profile figures had accused Associated Newspapers, the publisher of the Daily Mail, of phone hacking and of intruding into their private lives between 1993 and 2011. The newspaper group, which also owns several other titles that are not implicated in the case, had denied all of the accusations.

The lawsuit was the sole unresolved case among several that Harry has brought in recent years against British tabloids, most of them centering on accusations of unlawful media intrusion. He won damages in a case against the Mirror Group in 2023, with a judge ruling that his phone had been hacked. In 2025, Rupert Murdoch’s News Group Newspapers agreed to pay “substantial” damages to Harry and admitted for the first time to unlawful activities by private investigators working for The Sun.

The case against Associated Newspapers has been costly, with total legal expenses for the two and a half month trial estimated at around 40 million pounds, or $53.5 million, according to figures provided to the court by both sides and cited by the British press.

The trial began in London’s High Court in January and included testimony from the claimants on how the Daily Mail’s intrusive tactics had harmed them. In January, Harry became visibly emotional as he described his yearslong legal battle with Associated Newspapers, saying: “They continue to come after me, they have made my wife’s life an absolute misery.”

The other claimants included Elton John and his husband, David Furnish, the actresses Liz Hurley and Sadie Frost, a former British government minister, and a racial justice campaigner.

Harry lives in California with his wife and their children, but the ruling came as the prince was in Britain for a visit that has been overshadowed by drama and confusion over his family’s travel plans.