Meghan Markle has another reason to celebrate on Wednesday.
The Duchess of Sussex, as the BBC reports, won the remainder of her copyright claim against Associated Newspapers Limited (ANL), the publisher of the Mail on Sunday and MailOnline, over the publication of a personal letter to her estranged father, Thomas Markle, in U.K. High Court on Wednesday.
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The news comes just months after she won most of the battle in February but the newspaper continued to suggest that Markle was not the sole copyright owner of the letter. They argued that the letter was co-authored by Jason Knauf, the former communications secretary to the “Suits” alum and her husband Prince Harry. If that had been the case, the copyright would belong to the Crown.
On Wednesday, according to Variety, Markle won after Knauf “emphatically” denied co-writing the letter while lawyers representing the Queen informed Markle’s legal representation that they “did not consider the Crown to be the copyright owner.”
“Mr. Knauf did not draft, and has never claimed to have drafted, any parts of the electronic draft or the letter and would never have asserted copyright over any of their content. In our client’s view, it was the duchess’s letter alone,” Knauf’s lawyers told the court during the hearing.
While Ian Mill, QC, representing Markle, added, “This unequivocal statement of Mr. Knauf’s position also gives the lie to the defendant’s inferential case, in its defence to both the privacy and copyright claims, that the claimant considered using the letter ‘as part of a media strategy.’”
After hearing both statements, Lord Justice Warby granted summary judgement, which means the final judgement was made in Markle’s favour and now the case will avoid another trial.
