The long-running ‘phone hacking’ litigation against the publisher of The Sun and the now-defunct News of the World, in which more than 1,000 claims have been settled at a total cost of hundreds of millions of pounds, will continue – for now.

News Group Newspapers (NGN) applied last week for a ‘final cut-off date’ in the mobile telephone voicemail intercept litigation (MTVIL), which began back in 2011 after the first individual claim was brought in 2007.

The publisher has since compromised ‘approximately 1,028 claims’ as well as more than 350 applications made through its own compensation scheme, the court heard. NGN has never accepted liability for voicemail interception or unlawful information gathering in relation to The Sun.

Anthony Hudson QC, for NGN, said the litigation has featured at least 45 hearings, not including costs hearings, since 2016 alone. There have also been 12 trials, ‘equating to 53 weeks of court time’, listed and vacated since the MTVIL began. ‘To NGN’s knowledge, no other comparable litigation in the English courts has been as prolonged as the MTVIL,’ he added.

The Sun newspaper

NGN has never accepted liability for voicemail interception or unlawful information gathering in relation to The Sun

Source: Alamy

He said the total costs payable by NGN for the previous tranche of claims came to almost £35m, which bears ‘no proportionate relation to the settlement payments of £15,410,050’.

Hudson suggested the claimants’ lawyers have an ‘incentive’ to continue the MTVIL, saying: ‘The fact that costs are so high only benefits one group of people and, as is often the way, it is the lawyers.’

But David Sherborne, for the claimants, said: ‘The costs directly result from NGN’s own concealed wrongdoing committed in respect of an enormous number of victims over very many years.’

Sherborne said NGN has paid £11.5m in costs in respect of the previous tranche of the litigation and made an interim payment of £1.5m in the current tranche, which are ‘dwarfed when compared to the total damages in excess of £41m recovered by claimants’ in those two groups.

Mr Justice Fancourt dismissed NGN’s application on Friday, but said a final cut-off date could be made ‘at a later date’, adding: ‘At some stage, the managed litigation has to be brought to a controlled conclusion.’

The ruling came after the publication of NGN’s accounts for the year ending 27 June 2021, which revealed that the company spent around £49m on legal fees and damages in relation to unlawful information gathering claims, down from £80m the previous year.

 

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