Meghan's latest win against the Mail on Sunday over her letter to her father Thomas Markle
The Duchess of Sussex has won her latest legal fight with the publishers of the Mail on Sunday in her long running court case she brought following the publication of her private letter to her father.
Meghan, who now lives in California with Prince Harry and their son Archie, sued Associated Newspapers after they printed parts of the letter.
She has now won the copyright claim against the newspaper group – following an earlier victory in February on the claim for privacy infringement.
At a virtual session of the High Court on Wednesday, both Meghan’s former press secretary and lawyers acting for The Queen stated they did not claim copyright of the letter.
The Mail on Sunday’s legal team had argued Meghan was not the sole copyright holder of the letter because she had shared a draft of it with Jason Knauf, who was the senior communications chief at Kensington Palace at the time.
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The Duchess’ lawyers admitted that Mr Knauf had "worked on the draft" of her letter to Thomas Markle - but when it came to the copyright of the letter they argued "you can work on a draft without becoming an author of it".
The draft of Meghan's letter to her father was in the Notes app on her iPhone before she copied it out and sent a handwritten version to Thomas Markle in August 2018.
The letter was a personal one about the breakdown of her relationship with her father earlier that year during the run-up to the Royal Wedding in May.
Meghan has not spoken to her father since then and Thomas Markle has never met his son-in-law Prince Harry, not his grandson Archie.
Even though he saw the draft and suggested some amendments, Jason Knauf said through his legal team that he "was not an author of the Electronic Draft", that he "does not own any copyright” and he "had no wish, and did not consent, to being joined as a party in the proceedings".
Meghan said she had shared a draft of her iPhone letter "with her husband and Mr Knauf for support, as this was a deeply painful process that they had lived through with her".
Her former press secretary’s suggestions, Meghan argued, were "in the form of 'general ideas' as opposed to actual wording".
The High Court Judge, Lord Justice Warby, was told "she, and she alone, created the Electronic Draft which she then transcribed by hand" and she had spent "many hours working on it, until it was in a form with which she was happy."
Additionally, lawyers for Buckingham Palace submitted - via the Keeper of the Privy Purse who was "acting on behalf of Her Majesty The Queen" - that they "do not consider the Crown to be the copyright owner of the Electronic Draft" of Meghan's letter to her father.
Meghan had previously been awarded 90% of the legal costs of her application for a Summary Judgement (which the Judge subsequently granted).
The Duchess has now been awarded the remaining 10% of her costs which had been reserved.
In March, the Mail on Sunday was ordered to print a statement about Meghan’s victory on the front page and a notice on page three of the newspaper.
The Mail Online was also ordered to publish something similar on its home page.
But the apologies were put on hold, to allow Associated Newspapers time to seek permission to appeal.