Duchess of Sussex will receive £1 from Mail on Sunday for breaching her privacy

The Duchess of Sussex will receive £1 from the Mail on Sunday for breaching her privacy; along with a secret lump sum; after a judge agreed she could claim a share of the newspaper’s profits from a story which breached her copyright.

The Mail on Sunday will pay an initial instalment of £300,000 towards the Duchess’s legal costs this week; as well as an undisclosed sum for copyright infringement.

It follows a Court of Appeal victory for the Duchess; who successfully argued Associated Newspapers Limited breached her privacy and copyright; with the publication of part of a handwritten letter she sent to her father.

The Duchess agreed to accept “nominal” damages for the privacy element, amounting to £1.

In doing so, she argued she should instead be entitled to an “account of profits” made by the newspaper the group as a result of its copyright infringement.

The two parties have now settled on a “confidential sum”.

ALSO READ: Meghan Markle: UK Tabloid prints front-page apology for publishing a private letter she sent her father

A spokeswoman for the Duchess described it as a substantial payment based on the newspaper group’s profits from the story; which was agreed and accepted by the Duchess on a confidential basis avoiding the matter having to go back before the court.

The money would be donated to charity, she said.

The Duchess sued Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), also the publisher of MailOnline; over five articles that reproduced parts of a “personal and private” letter to her estranged father Thomas Markle in August 2018.

The duchess won her case last year; when a High Court judge ruled in her favour without a full trial, and Court of Appeal judges subsequently dismissed an appeal by Associated Newspapers.

Ian Mill QC said, at a court hearing last year, that the Duchess was willing to “cap her damages” for misuse of private information “at a nominal award”; if the court would order “an account of profits”: evidence of how much the publisher gained financially from its publication of the letter; in relation to the infringement of the duchess’s copyright.

The newspaper has already issued a printed acknowledgement of the legal ruling.