Prince Harry and his fellow claimants may have to cover hefty court costs after losing a high-profile legal case earlier this month.

Justice Matthew Nicklin handed down the decision on July 7, declaring that the Duke of Sussex and six other high-profile claimants — including Elton John, Elizabeth Hurley and Jude Law’s ex-wife, Sadie Frost — had lost their case against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), the publisher of the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday, failing to prove that the publications had engaged in illegal information gathering.

On Wednesday, July 29, a follow-up hearing began to determine how much of ANL’s legal costs the claimants will be liable for. Reuters reported that ANL lawyer Antony White argued for payment on an “indemnity basis,” in which the losing party is ordered to pay the winner’s actual legal costs, whether or not they are proportionate to the case.

In their court filing, ANL declared their costs to be $45.8 million, which Nicholas Bacon, the lawyer for the claimants, called an “eye-watering” overestimation, aimed at going “for the jugular” in order to publicly scold the claimants for filing in the first place.

According to The Telegraph, the court heard that Prince Harry and some of his fellow claimants have an insurance policy in the case. However, the insurance only covers around $23.4 million.

The lawsuit against ANL was first filed in October 2022. In it, claimants alleged that the outlets had published stories about them with information that had been sourced unlawfully. However, in his verdict, Mr. Justice Nicklin dismissed all claims, stating the claimants’ evidence failed to prove that the articles at the center of the case were the product of unlawful information gathering.

Following the ruling, ANL released a statement calling the judge’s decision an “overwhelming victory for the Daily Mail and its journalists, and for a free press generally.”

Prince Harry and fellow claimant Baroness Doreen Lawrence released a lengthy, scathing statement after the ruling, which referred to the outcome as “a complete and obvious whitewash.”

“We came to Court seeking justice and accountability. But we have received neither,” Harry and Baroness Lawrence said, in part. “The lengths to which the Court has gone to exonerate the Mail is as shocking as it is totally unwarranted.”

“It feels here like one rule for the newspapers and another for the claimants. While the Claimants presented evidence, Mail journalists simply gave denials, and the Court chose uncritically to believe them, even in the face of inconsistencies, contradictions and blatant untruths that were obvious to neutral observers in Court when compared to the documents,” they added. “We presented to the Court evidence which we believed was compelling at the time and remains so now. We would like to thank our legal team for all their hard work and all the witnesses who were brave enough to come forward in the pursuit of justice.”

In his opening statements on Wednesday, White also fired back at Harry’s statement, calling it “entirely inappropriate and unreasonable.”

“That conduct sought — and achieved — global publicity for a continued allegation that Associated was in fact guilty of the wrongdoing alleged,” the ANL legal team said in a filing obtained by Newsweek. “If the Claimants’ conduct in these proceedings does not attract an order for indemnity costs, then it is difficult to see what case would.”

Bacon responded in his own statement, saying, “The costs to be ordered at this hearing concern the action itself, not the reaction to it.”

The claimants have offered an interim payment of $10.7 million by August 28. The hearing is set to continue on Thursday, July 30.

Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, 44, have had some success battling U.K. publishers over privacy concerns in the past. They previously received a symbolic £1 ($1.36) in damages from the Mail on Sunday after successfully winning their legal case against the paper for publishing a personal letter she sent to her father, Thomas Markle, in 2018.

Harry also reached a settlement with the publisher of The Sun last January, which paid an eight-figure sum in damages and issued an apology acknowledging unlawful actions.