A group of high-profile Brits have launched legal action against the publishers of The Daily Mail, alleging the UK newspaper invaded their privacy and tapped their phones.
The Daily Mail has denied all the allegations, calling them "preposterous smears".
Here's what we know about the lawsuit and the allegations that have sparked it.
Who's involved?
London law firm Hamlins LLP published a statement on Thursday confirming a group of claimants had launched legal action against Associated Newspapers.
Associated Newspapers publishes The Daily Mail, The Mail on Sunday and the Mail Online in the UK.
There are six people named in the statement:
- Prince Harry
- Musician Elton John and his husband, filmmaker David Furnish
- Baroness Doreen Lawrence OBE, member of the House of Lords and founder of the Stephen Lawrence Day Foundation
- Actor and model Elizabeth Hurley
- Actor and director Sadie Frost
Hamlins says it's representing Duke of Sussex and Sadie Frost, with the other claimants to be represented by gunnercooke LLP, another London firm.
What are the allegations?
The press release from Hamlins says the six individuals named have "become aware of compelling and highly distressing evidence that they have been the victims of abhorrent criminal activity and gross breaches of privacy by Associated Newspapers".
"They have now therefore banded together to uncover the truth, and to hold the journalists responsible fully accountable, many of whom still hold senior positions of authority and power today," the statement says.
Hamlins says the alleged offences include paying police officials for sensitive information, impersonating people to obtain medical information, accessing bank histories, and hiring private investigators to "secretly place listening devices inside people's cars and homes".
Has the Daily Mail responded?
A spokesperson for Associated Newspapers has said the claims are "based on no credible evidence".
"We utterly and unambiguously refute these preposterous smears which appear to be nothing more than a pre-planned and orchestrated attempt to drag the Mail titles into the phone hacking scandal concerning articles up to 30 years old," the spokesperson said.
"These unsubstantiated and highly defamatory claims, based on no credible evidence, appear to be simply a fishing expedition by claimants and their lawyers, some of whom have already pursued cases elsewhere."
This isn't the first time this has happened, right?
It's certainly not the first case of its kind, and many of those named in the new lawsuit have been involved in legal action against the press before.
Prince Harry already has a lawsuit against Associated Newspapers going through the courts.
He is suing the Mail on Sunday for libel over an article saying he tried to keep details of his legal fight to reinstate his police protection a secret.
He won damages last year from the same paper over claims he had turned his back on the Royal Marines, and his wife Meghan, Duchess of Sussex, also won a privacy case against the publisher in December for printing a letter she had written to her estranged father.
Hurley, John and Furnish settled phone-hacking claims against the publisher of the now-defunct News of the World shortly before it went to trial in 2019. That case resulted in the conviction of former editor Andy Coulson, who later went to work for then-prime minister David Cameron as his communications chief.
In 2015, Frost was awarded more than 260,000 pounds ($452,000) in compensation after she and seven other celebrities sued Mirror Group Newspapers for hacking messages on their phones.
ABC/wires
