Rupert Murdoch’s U.K. media company apologized to Prince Harry for charges that journalists at its tabloid newspapers used illegal information gathering, as it settled a long-running case that threatened to resurface decades-old accusations of wrongdoing. News Group Newspapers Ltd. will pay “substantial damages” and issue a “full and unequivocal apology” for the intrusion by private detectives working for The Sun tabloid, lawyers said in a London court on Wednesday, before an eight-week trial began.

It is the first time the publisher has accepted responsibility for any misconduct at The Sun, after earlier admitting to substantial phone hacking at the defunct News of the World tabloid. NGN has already settled around 1,300 civil cases involving phone hacking with celebrities, politicians, and sports figures. “News U.K. is finally held to account for its illegal actions and blatant disregard for the law,” Prince Harry’s lawyer David Sherborne said in a statement released outside court. He claimed the corporation had made more than £1 billion ($1.2 billion) in total compensation and costs to claimants since the misbehaviour was discovered.

The settlement ends a long legal struggle for the king, who has been suing British tabloids for years over interference into his and his family’s private affairs. The London trial was expected to resurrect decades-old charges of misbehaviour, bringing back memories of the legal fights that led to convictions, as well as proposals for broad British media reform. When Prince Harry testified in a case against the Mirror newspapers in 2023, he became the first prominent individual in the British monarchy to appear in a London court since Queen Victoria’s son, who would eventually become King Edward VII in the 1890s. He won the case.

NGN offers a full and unequivocal apology to the Duke of Sussex for the serious intrusion by The Sun between 1996 and 2011 into his private life, including incidents of unlawful activities carried out by private investigators working for The Sun,” the company said in its statement.