A law firm that played a central role in Prince Harry’s unsuccessful privacy action against the publisher of the Daily Mail has gone bankrupt, according to a report on Thursday.
According to GB News, Thomson Heath Jenkins has shut its doors and brought in insolvency practitioners.
GB News reported that one company insider has told the Telegraph that the development was “a shock for staff”.
The most recent article on the firm’s website, titled “Thomson Heath Jenkins & Associates and its Lawyers once again rank highly in the Chambers & Partners UK Guide 2027”, was published on October 15.
The practice jointly instructed barristers on behalf of all seven celebrity claimants, Prince Harry, Baroness Doreen Lawrence, Sir Elton John, David Furnish, Liz Hurley, Sadie Frost and Sir Simon Hughes, in their high-profile case against Associated Newspapers Limited.
Prince Harry, singer Elton John and other high-profile claimants face paying millions of dollars out of their own pockets to cover the legal costs of the Daily Mail’s publisher after a judge ruled their failed privacy lawsuits were conducted in an unreasonable way.
The court was told at a hearing in July that Associated had incurred a legal bill of £34.5 million ($45.8 million), while Harry and other claimants only had an insurance policy which covered £16 million.
Associated’s lawyer Antony White argued the claimants had made wide-ranging and serious, “egregious” allegations without supporting evidence which had added to their costs.
